A pink-haired young woman popped out of her seat as though she’d just been waiting for something to go wrong. “Sure thing, Deke. Am I looking for anything specific?”
“I’d like to see if anyone might have followed my friend here,” Deke replied.
“Something going on?” A man with piercing green eyes and super-short dark hair asked. He looked military.
There were several women and men around the table. The men were all dressed in a similar fashion to Deke, dress shirts and slacks. The women were in cocktail dresses.
“I don’t know yet, but I want to be careful.” Deke gestured her way. “This is an old friend of mine from high school. Her name is Madeline Hill.”
A stunningly gorgeous blond guy whistled. “The Maddie Hill?”
“Not now, Boom,” Deke said with a shake of his head. “Maddie works for Nolan Byrne.”
A collective gasp went through the room, and she realized where she was. She was in a hall of geeks. Her people.
She hadn’t expected them to be Deke’s, yet here she was in a room full of people playing an economic game based around small woodland creatures and their railroads and who likely worshipped Nolan Byrne.
“Who’s that?” Except the gorgeous blond guy who seemed to know who she was. He was also huge. Like he was probably taller than she was right now and he was sitting down.
“Dude, even I know that and I’m usually the dummy of this group,” the man with the military cut said.
“Not if I’m here,” Blond Hunk shot back.
“That’s why I said usually,” Military Cut replied.
“Don’t be rude,” Pink-Haired Hacker said to Military Cut, and mentally Maddie put them together. There was something about the rebuke that screamed girlfriend.
That wasn’t the only conclusion Maddie could draw. There was no question in Maddie’s mind what Pink Hair did for a living. She’d basically walked off the pages of a techno thriller. Pink Hair worked in cybersecurity, and likely for the same firm as Deke. They weren’t two people who looked like they would fit together except for the forced proximity of work. It could make for unlikely friendships.
“To answer Boomer’s question, Nolan Byrne is a god of the tech world.” The man who spoke was leaner than the rest and had what looked like a Red Vine in his mouth. He talked around the candy like he’d done it a million times. “He started out in the gaming world, made his first billion by inventing the chip that powers most virtual reality headsets now. He then moved on to smart cars.”
“I want a Byrne so bad,” Pink Hair said with a sigh. “I can’t afford one, but I want it. It fully integrates with everything. Like I could plug it into my smart home and tell it to charge up and I don’t have to do anything. It’s that cool. It’s also got a hands-free drive function. I can’t believe you…” Pink Hair stopped and frowned suddenly. “He’s evil, isn’t he? Damn it. I should have known.”
“I didn’t say that,” Maddie stammered.
“Of course he’s evil,” a feminine voice said. She was a pretty woman wearing a cardigan over her dress. She had a heavy cane leaning on the table at her side. “He’s managed to make billions of dollars in three different tech fields. He’s barely forty. I assure you he’s stepped on people. He’s into satellites now, isn’t he?”
“Yes.” Maddie was on the team that was set to launch the first new model in six weeks. She had six weeks to figure out what was wrong with that satellite.
“Baby, just because a tech guru tried to kill you doesn’t mean Deke’s high school girlfriend is here because her tech guru is a bad guy,” Red Vine said, winking Cardigan’s way.
“Girlfriend?” Military Cut seemed interested again.
“Hey, can we focus?” Deke stepped in behind Pink Hair. “You got anything?”
“No one except her for the last hour. The building’s quiet. She waited on the steps for a long time, though. She’s nervous about seeing you,” Pink Hair said.
“I was…I was trying to remember if this was the right building.” Who the hell were these people and why was she slightly afraid of them?
“They all look similar in this part of the city.” Deke was obviously trying to smooth things over for her because that was a complete lie. The buildings were all arty and different. “Maddie, let me introduce you to my friends. This is MaeBe Vaughn. She and Hutch are part of McKay-Taggart’s cyber team. McKay-Taggart is…”
She knew exactly who they were. “The company you work for.”
He nodded. “Yeah. I’m on an investigative team. I often work with Brian Ward, but we all call him Boomer.”
The blond hottie waved. “Hi, Deke’s old girlfriend.”
Deke ignored that entirely. He quickly pointed to the rest of his friends. Hutch was the guy with the Red Vine. His wife was Noelle, and she was in biotech. Kyle Hawthorne was Military Cut, and he was a bodyguard.