Page 10 of Cold Silence
She’d worked too hard to get over him, and she needed to remember he wasn’t here because she’d suddenly decided their relationship was a good idea. He was here to make sure the thief didn’t obtain the missing information and to recover the prototype.
She crossed the room and ignored the questions in Julie’s eyes. As Claire’s former roommate, Julie knew about Travis, but Claire hadn’t met Julie until after the breakup, and she’d never heard the full story.
Claire forced herself to turn her attention to Travis. “You’ll want to change for testing. Assuming you brought your ACU.”
“Roger that.” He lifted his stuffed duffle bag where apparently he’d planned ahead for testing and packed his Army Combat Uniform. He would wear the combat uniform to simulate real-life combat action.
Claire turned to Julie. “Would you show Captain Chapman to the locker room and then set up the testing gear?”
That’s it. All business. Stay polite yet firm and you’ll be okay.
“Sure,” Julie said pleasantly. “Follow me.” She set off for the door, but Travis didn’t budge.
Instead, he leaned close and looked at her through solemn black eyes. A look she knew was the closest he would ever come to acknowledging she’d somehow hurt him. “Call me Captain Chapman instead of Travis one more time and there will be consequences,” he said in a no-nonsense tone.
“I thought it best to keep things formal between us.”
He met her gaze and held it, the hurt already fading. “Try all you want, sweetheart, but calling me captain won’t make our history go away.”
She opened her mouth to argue, but there was nothing she could say. Plus, her team would question why she formally addressed him after his request to be called Travis.
“Fine. Travis it is.” She jerked her head at the door. “Julie’s waiting for you.”
His serious expression gave way to a smile. “I know the testing’s a ruse, but I’m jonesing to see how our plans came to life.”
She didn’t bother denying his claim to the project. His feedback and ideas had helped make CATS a supreme training tool and despite the drama between them now, she was thankful for his input. “Then your assignment won’t be such a burden for you.”
An eyebrow went up. Oh, man. He appeared as fierce as the virtual enemies she’d created for CATS. “Might be a good idea to try to solicit alibis for last night from your team while I test CATS.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You really do believe the theft is an inside job, don’t you?”
“Yes, and I’ll keep on believing it until we prove someone broke in here.” He held her gaze. “You never did tell me exactly how you discovered the theft.”
“When I arrived, I went to open the cubby where we store the device prototypes.”
“Yeah, I remember. Each device has its own cubby. You lock them up every night and only open the one that’s in use or if it needs to be worked on.”
She nodded. “If I’m on-site, which is most of the time, I take care of it. I was here last night so I know it was in the locked cubby when I left for the day. “
“Who else has a key?” Travis asked.
“Our security manager, but he’s at a conference in Texas so he couldn’t have opened the cubby. I suppose someone could’ve gotten ahold of our keys, but they have a do not copy inscription on them and no reputable locksmith would duplicate them.”
“Plenty of dishonest locksmiths out there,” Travis said. “So when did you discover the software was downloaded?”
“The devices are worthless without the software, so I immediately went to look at the main file. It uses encryption and obfuscation techniques to stop unauthorized parties from reading, modifying, or reverse-engineering the software. The change log showed that it had been downloaded last night around eleven fifteen. I quickly called our security company, and they told me the system was offline for an hour around that time.”
“And that’s when you got the higher-ups involved?”
“I did, but I really wanted to have our IT staff review the network activity to see if the software was cloned. I resisted the urge because I didn’t want word to get around and freak out my team.”
“And then the top brass told you to keep it quiet.”
“Yeah, which is where you came in, and why we still haven’t gotten a look at the network logs.”
“That’ll all be taken care of when the Veritas expert arrives.”
“If he can prove it’s someone on my team, I really don’t want to know who it is.” She shivered. “But I know I have to.”
