Hutch hesitated.
“If she talks about you, they’ll find you,” MaeBe pointed out. “You can’t help her right now. All you can do is save her research and get the feds the data they need. They can get her out. We don’t even know if they’re arresting her. This could be about Kyle.”
He didn’t think so. The mystery woman had said she’d put her plan in motion, and this felt like a plan.
He couldn’t let Noelle’s research fall into the trap.
With a pain in his heart, he turned and made his way to the back of the building. “All right. Get me out of here.”
Walking away was the hardest thing he’d ever done.
* * * *
Noelle’s hands were still shaking two hours later. She’d been arrested, put through the booking process, and then shown to this cold, quiet room. On the wall across from her hung the classic mirror through which someone would watch her.
But she’d been left in here alone for what felt like forever.
The moment when she’d realized something had gone terribly wrong played through her head. She’d walked out and seen the red and blue lights, realized it was Kyle on the ground, and then the kindly security guard had explained that they were here for her.
She’d glanced behind her and Hutch had been gone.
He’d left her. Left her alone to be arrested, to know her career was in ruins because she was being accused of stealing something from the company. She still didn’t understand that part.
She definitely didn’t understand where Hutch had gone and why he’d left her alone.
The door came open and a man entered. He wore a button-down shirt and slacks. His badge was in a lanyard around his neck. He was tall and older than the men who’d arrested her. There were threads of gray in his short, well-kept hair. He pulled out the chair across from her and settled in, a notepad in front of him.
“Noelle LaVigne, I am Detective Grady. Do you want to explain to me why you broke into the Genedyne server rooms this evening?”
“I would like to make a phone call.” Her first thought was to call Hutch. She wanted to see him, to have him tell her everything was going to be okay.
But he’d left her. He’d left her and Kyle behind. She was starting to wonder if Hutch wasn’t the reason she was here in the first place. He’d been gone so long, and then he’d wanted to hustle them out of the building.
He’d told Kyle he was going to the bathroom. What if he hadn’t been? What if he’d been doing something else?
Trust me, baby. I’m going to take care of things no matter what. I’m going to put you first.
So much for putting her first.
“You can have your phone call, but I need you to answer a few questions first. Is there any way this is a mix-up? I’m surprised a nice young woman like yourself is involved in something criminal.”
“What exactly am I being accused of?” It would be nice to know why she was sitting here. She was a sheriff’s daughter. She knew she should ask for a lawyer, but the whole day seemed surreal. This was some kind of nightmare, and she would wake up soon.
“You and your boyfriend broke into a part of the Genedyne building that was off limits to you. They’ve had several problems there in the last couple of weeks with people breaking in.”
“I don’t have to break in. I work there. And tonight I never left my lab,” she replied. “I was in my lab from after lunch to a few minutes before you arrested me.”
“That is not what the security logs say.” He opened a folder that was sitting in front of him. “According to this, you used your security card to open the door to the server room at exactly nine forty-two this evening.”
She looked down at the security logs and sure enough, her keycard registered as accessing the server room. There was one big problem with that. “That’s impossible. I don’t have clearance to get into that room.”
“Yes, that’s what we’ve been told, too. The logs clearly show that your card was used to enter the room. From what we can tell your security clearance was changed an hour before.”
“I wouldn’t know how to do that. I certainly don’t have access to change security levels for an employee even if I did.” She hadn’t been able to find her card earlier. She’d thought she’d misplaced it. Hutch had distracted her from looking for it.
It had gone missing a few minutes after Hutch had brought her dinner and kissed her and changed all his previously important security protocols about her staying at work.
She was starting to get a bad feeling. Why wasn’t Hutch up here trying to get her out? She hadn’t seen Kyle since they’d put him in a separate squad car and raced off.