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Why?”
“I’ll get to that.” Matt’s voice was strained. “As I was saying, since you left your assets to me—”
“Actually, I left my assets to my parents, under your guidance as trust manager.” Security at Hummingbird’s level was lucrative, and Jason had built what his mother called “quite the nest egg.” Not wanting his parents to face the repercussions of suddenly having a huge sum of money, he’d set it up to take care of them for life without causing a burden.
“Exactly,” Matt acknowledged. “They’re getting their allowance, and having a lot of fun with it, you’ll be glad to know. But I created a pocket fund for you. It’s been paying your ongoing expenses, including your property taxes and housekeeper.”
Jason raised his eyebrows. “My home is still there?”
“Yeah.”
“My neighbors—”
“Moved out, a month ago. Place is still vacant.”
What a coincidence. He only had one family living close enough to notice his presence, and they were gone? Matt had been busy.
“How come I didn’t know about this stuff?” He motioned around the lab. “Before, I mean. It had to be long-term research.”
Matthew winced. “Yeah, I kinda hoped you’d be mad enough about the rest to not mention that.” He rubbed the back of his neck and left his hand there. “It’s a separate company, not part of Hummingbird. And what they were doing was so sensitive, so advanced—”
“You didn’t trust me.”
“That’s not true.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me?”
Matt didn’t talk for several seconds. Finally, he admitted quietly, “It was so sensitive and advanced, even before we used it on you, it skirted moral if not legal channels. I didn’t think you’d approve.”
Jason watched him straighten and turn away. An unfamiliar warmth soothed the burning. He’d been wallowing down here for months, thinking one thing, and the opposite was the truth.
He cleared his throat and snatched at the towel hanging over the treadmill, just for distraction. “Okay, so.” The words stuck, and he cleared his throat again. “So. The risk of someone wanting the technology and coming after either me or the company.”
Matt turned around again, his face tightening. “I figured it would be acceptable to you.”
It was. “Except—”
“Except I underestimated our enemies.”
“Someone already knows.”
“Suspects.”
“Any idea who?” Jason’s mind clicked into work mode and started considering possibilities.
“Someone who knows me. Knows us, and what would hurt us most.”
His brain halted on one name. “Kemmerling.”
“I think so. I don’t know for sure.”
Isaac Kemmerling was a former employee. Slightly younger than Jason, he’d been an excellent agent for Hummingbird until two years ago, when he was promoted to mission leader, got cocky and risked all his agents’ lives on a job, and was censured. He didn’t take well to that and left the company. Since then, he’d done his best—unsuccessfully—to discredit Hummingbird and “take down” Matthew and Jason, as he’d threatened in a taped interview with a small-town Maryland reporter. It made sense he’d try to capitalize on the misfortune following the Kolanko incident.
“Who else could it be?” he asked, his mind searching for possibilities and not coming up with any.
Matt shrugged. “No one we’ve pinpointed. No one who has the knowledge, contacts, and especially motive to come after me. I could be wrong. But it’s the best place to start.”
Jason nodded. “So that’s what you need me for.” He looked around for a pad and pen. “To investigate Kemmerling without anyone knowing.”
“Not exactly.”
Matt’s voice had tightened even further, and Jason stilled, his heart thudding even though he had no idea what was coming.
“I got intel today that leads me to think Kemmerling is going after Lark,” Matt said.
Jason swallowed. “What kind of intel?”
Matthew pulled a folded piece of paper from his back pocket. It was a