“What’s going on?” Devon asked as he stepped inside.

  “I’m not really sure. Stay here. I need to check the bedroom.” Thankfully, the gas was leaving quickly. Still, Powers’s eyes watered and his lungs ached. In the bedroom, he found no one, but opened more windows to let in additional fresh air, the evening breeze pouring in, rustling the papers on the nightstand.

  “Why would someone do this?” Devon asked, hurrying up to him as soon as Powers joined him in the living room again. “I don’t get it.” He shook, and Powers held him close as his mind raced through possibilities, with one refusing to leave his mind.

  “I believe our puppet master might have come to the conclusion that you aren’t as naïve as they thought you were. They obviously knew you weren’t in the apartment, but it would send one hell of a message if the place blew up, and it would likely look like an accident, at least for a while.” Powers shook his head, not going into the fact that it would likely injure or kill some of the other people in the building. This was more than just someone trying to steal the secrets of a banking system. Someone now wanted Devon out of the way, and that frightened Powers more than he ever wanted to think about.

  “Pack some of your things. I’m going to call Lucy, and we’re getting you out of here. We’ll go to my place for now. You’ll be safer there, and hopefully we can get closer to the bastard who’s pulling the strings and see if we can’t take a pair of scissors to him.”

  “Okay,” Devon agreed softly and went to the bedroom. He came out a few minutes later with a duffel bag and hurried to the kitchen counter. “My computer….” Devon stopped, staring at the counter. “It was right there.” He pointed and turned back. “I….” He sighed and then swore under his breath. “The bastards took it.”

  “Was it password protected?” Powers asked.

  “Of course, and it’s going to take them a long time to try to break in to it, but they probably could. And if they do, then they could probably find the programs we were working on.” Devon held his head. “I don’t think they’ll be able to determine the changes we made to protect the development access systems and libraries, but I’m not sure.” He started to shake again, and Powers took him by the hand. He needed to get him out of here and somewhere safe.

  Now that the apartment had been aired out, he closed the windows again and then escorted Devon out. They would have to call the police and report the theft, but for now he needed Devon to be safe. He closed up the apartment out of habit, not that it was going to do any good if Devon’s visitors decided to come back, but it was better than nothing.

  Powers’s heart raced as they descended the stairs. He checked at each landing for anyone who might be waiting, and then the sidewalk as well, before hurrying to his car. He took off as soon as Devon was inside, calling Lucy through the Bluetooth to let her know what was happening.

  “I was just getting dinner,” she explained.

  “We’ll meet at home,” Powers told her. “Whoever is behind this is escalating. I think they are getting more and more scared that they can’t get what they want,” he said, patting Devon’s knee to try to reassure him as he explained to Lucy what had happened.

  “I’ll be there soon and, Devon, don’t worry. Powers is the best at this sort of thing. He isn’t going to let anything happen to you. I have another computer here. Did you have backups?”

  “Yeah,” Devon said, his voice breaking.

  “Then we’ll restore them so you can have access to your stuff and work on the clone I made of Mark’s hard drive.” She sounded so pleased with herself.

  “Great. See you in a few.” Powers made some extra turns, being sure they weren’t followed, taking his time before getting to the house. He parked in the garage in back off the alley and went right through the well-lit yard and into the house, then set the exterior alarm system as soon as they were inside. Lucy had her own code, and she would reset it when she came in. This wasn’t how he had expected to spend the evening, but plans changed all the damned time, and he had every intention of keeping Devon safe.

  LUCY ARRIVED ten minutes later with food. She found them in the living room. Devon sat on the end of the sofa, staring across the room. Powers might have been flattered to have Devon watching him, but he was pretty sure Devon simply stared through him at nothing.

  “It’s going to be okay.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he finally answered. “Someone was in my apartment, and they were going to blow it up.” He blinked. “Should we have called the police?”

  Powers was wishing they had, but his first instinct had been to get Devon away and safe. Nothing else mattered. “We could if you want.”

  Devon shook his head. “I don’t want to go back there until we catch this guy.” He sighed. “I wish we were closer to figuring it out.”

  “Then let’s figure this shit out,” Lucy said, bringing in the food. She set the bags on the table and put out the containers and plates, then sat down. She dished out portions of the various dishes of Chinese takeout before leaning back in her chair. “I didn’t get much from Mark’s computer. The emails were sent from Gmail, and the account is pretty much fake as far as I can tell. But we need to talk this over.”

  “I wish I knew who the buyer was.”

  Lucy leaned forward, still chewing. Devon hadn’t moved and seemed to be ignoring the food altogether. “Let’s go over what we do know, or might know. Someone placed the original envelope in Devon’s bag, either by accident or on purpose. Since it contained the drive with the program on it, I’m going to say it was by accident. Then they had to retrieve it, which happened.”

  “Yeah,” Devon breathed. “They used Mark to install and run the program on the system, and he framed me because he thought it was some sort of security test.” He shivered. “Someone tried to mug me, and then they broke into my apartment and even set it to blow up.”

  Powers shook his head. “They took your computer.”

  “Yeah,” Devon said.

  “Okay. They have a program that is supposed to gather the information they need, but it doesn’t work.” Powers’s mind ran a mile a minute. “Let’s say they are under a time crunch and what they need isn’t falling into their hands as quickly as they had expected.”

  “Yeah.”

  Powers set his plate on the coffee table as he glanced at both Lucy and Devon. “So think about it. Someone broke into your apartment to steal your computer. I’m willing to bet they accessed your computer at work to try to find what they were looking for. My guess is that someone has figured out—or at least suspects—that you might have been the one to change the variables on the system. You have access, and a security check would reveal that.”

  “So, they took my computer to try to see what I knew?” Devon asked.

  “Of course,” Lucy said. “They think Devon might be onto them, so they want to know what he knows or what he might know. And they stole his computer to try to figure it out.” She set her plate down as well, which was totally unusual. Lucy rarely stopped eating for anything. “What are you thinking?”

  “I think I know,” Devon said, putting his plate aside to rub his upper arms nervously.

  Powers nodded as he turned to Devon. “I think we need to set a trap and see if our puppet master will step into it.” He didn’t like the idea, because the bait for the trap had to be Devon, and he hated the thought of offering him up to anyone. “I’ve been going over and over who it might be, and I keep coming back to someone you work with. It has to be someone on the inside. It was too easy for them to get information to Mark, and there doesn’t seem to be enough distance. Besides, they seem to be able to maneuver through people to you too damned easily.”

  Devon picked up his plate again, holding it without eating. “What are we going to do?” he asked, his expression hardening. Powers was pretty proud of how Devon bucked up at the idea. Even a few days earlier, Powers doubted Devon would have stepped up to it.

  “I’m not quite sure.”

  “Mr. Mauer…,” Devon said. “I have to make an appointment with Mr. Mauer to explain that I have figured out who is behind the threat to steal the banking system. The thing I can’t seem to figure out is how to make an announcement of sorts about the appointment without standing up in the middle of the department to yell that I know what’s happening and will be telling Mr. Mauer.” He chuckled. “It has to be more subtle so the puppet master really believes that I know who is behind this. In order for this to work, they have to think I really know, and they have to be scared of me.”

  And there was the difficult part for Powers. As soon as the puppet master believed Devon knew who they were, the danger to Devon increased greatly. “We need to come up with a better way to do this. I could use myself as bait,” Powers interjected.

  Lucy shook her head. “No one is going to believe it. They will go after Devon and confront him because they think he can be intimidated, and they might try to influence him. With you, they’re more likely to wait for you outside the office and just shoot. You’re big and strong, and you aren’t going to be swayed to anyone else’s will.” She dug back into her dinner with gusto.

  Devon picked at his food, eating a little more than he had before, but nervousness seemed to flow off him. “I’ll do it, but we need to have a plan.” He pushed his plate onto the coffee table.

  Powers leaned closer. “Sweetheart, I am not going to put you in any sort of danger if I can help it.” He took Devon’s hand, hating the way he worried his lower lip with his teeth. “Before we do anything, we will have a rock-solid plan, and I’ll be nearby for as long as is necessary.” He lightly squeezed Devon’s elegant fingers. Powers held Devon’s gaze until he nodded slowly.

  “Dude, you’re so awesome.” Lucy jumped up and gave Devon a hug. “You got real guts.” She backed away, alternately looking at each of them. “You’re a real cute couple, but if Powers is a butthead again, you just tell me and I’ll give him the noogie to end all noogies.” The grin on her lips was pure twin-sister evil. Powers rolled his eyes and didn’t say anything, because it wasn’t going to do any good anyway.

  Devon chuckled slightly. “You were a butthead… maybe we both were.” He sniffed and hugged Powers, closing his eyes. “And no noogies for either of us—I got plenty of those when I was in school, when I wasn’t being ignored.” He sighed and turned away for a second. “So what do we do?”

  “I think I need to spend some more time with what I got from Mark’s computer and see what I can dig up. Maybe there’s something there that will link to some of the other data we have.” Lucy finished her dinner.

  Powers handed Devon his plate to try to get him to eat a little more, then finished and took care of the dishes.

  “I really hate how this guy seems to be able to hide behind everyone else. He has people who run his programs so he doesn’t have to get his fingers dirty, people to break into your apartment, and even mug people.” She brought Powers her plate and turned back to Devon. “How hard would it be for someone at your office to find out where you lived?”

  Devon shrugged. “Not too hard. I mean, I sometimes bring mail and things in with me so I can pay bills and mail things out. I bet they could look on my desk and find my address.” He paled. “I never thought to keep that a big secret.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  Lucy pulled out her laptop. “I googled Devon and got a whole bunch of entries. When I narrowed it down to Philadelphia, I didn’t find him. For some reason there isn’t enough for that listing to come up all that quickly.”

  “What are you trying to say, that I don’t exist?” Devon asked.

  “That you haven’t lived here that long and you haven’t put a ton of fingerprints all over the web. Also, there are a number of privacy laws and policies that are working in your favor, but what I’m getting at is that someone who doesn’t know you or have regular contact with you is going to have a hard time finding your address. Now, they could have followed you, but if our puppet master was someone outside your company, it is going to be more difficult to identify them.”

  “It isn’t like I’m well known to anyone outside the firm either,” Devon said with some energy. “My gut tells me it’s someone in the firm, even though I… shit….” Devon jumped to his feet and grabbed his phone. “We need to call Mark.”

  “Why?” Powers asked, and then it hit him.

  “We didn’t ask him if he took the envelope,” they both said together.

  Powers wanted to smack his forehead. That was so stupid on his part. He definitely should have thought of that.

  Devon dialed and waited for the line to connect, putting it on speaker. “Mark, it’s Powers, and we thought of one more question for you.”

  “Okay,” Mark said a little timidly.

  Powers thought of a decent way to ask the question. “Were you asked to retrieve anything from Devon’s bag?”

  “No. I thought it was a test, really. I’ve never gone into anyone’s bag.” He seemed completely flummoxed. “Devon, are you there? I never took anything from you, honest.” He sounded sincere to Powers, and Devon nodded as well.

  “Thank you,” Powers said as his mind continued turning. “Again, say nothing to anyone,” he cautioned, and Mark agreed, gratitude ringing in his voice as he ended the call. Powers pressed End as well and smiled. “That confirms it. If Mark didn’t take it, then I suspect our puppet master did. What are the chances that they would have more than one person working with them in the office?” Powers looked at both of them.

  “The more people involved, then the more chance there is that something will spill out,” Lucy agreed. “And if that’s the case, then our puppet master must have been the one to take back the envelope.”

  “Okay, so we need to figure out a way to flush this guy out and bring this to an end,” Devon said. “We need to put this guy out of his misery.” He smiled, and Powers chuckled as he nodded.

  “What do we do?”

  “I think we need to make it known that I have a meeting with Mr. Mauer tomorrow afternoon about a possible security breach. But I can’t think straight right now.” Devon yawned and put his hand over his mouth. “We’ve had plenty of excitement today.”

  Lucy stood and started gathering her things. “I’m going to head off to bed. I’d appreciate it if the two of you would keep things quiet.” She winked at Devon before heading up the stairs.

  “Come on. You and I might as well go to bed too.” Powers took Devon’s hand again. “If you would rather sleep alone, I can take the couch.” He wasn’t going to pressure Devon in any way. Their day had been an emotional roller coaster already.

  Devon shook his head. “I think we still need to figure some things out. But I don’t want to be alone.” He gripped Powers’s hand tightly as Powers led him to the stairs and then up to his room at the end of the hallway.

  Powers loved his bedroom. The house itself reflected things that both he and Lucy had collected and could be a bit of a mishmash with their conflicting styles, but this room was his, with heavy, masculine furniture and a king-size bed that was amazingly comfortable.

  “Wow,” Devon murmured as soon as Powers closed the door. He turned to Powers, his hands on his hips. “You had this here all this time and yet you slept with me at my pathetic place?” The crook on his lips told Powers that Devon was kidding, but then not, in a way… maybe not. “This is a divine space.” He approached the bed and the supersoft, plush comforter.

  “I bought it in Germany a few years ago. I had a case that took me there, and I fell in love with the light duvets they have, so I bought two and arranged to have them shipped here, along with the sheets. It’s rather decadent to sleep under. This is the summer-weight one, and I have a heavier one for winter.” Powers smiled. “Go ahead and lie down if you want.”

  Devon slipped off his shoes and climbed onto the bed. “Oh God,” he groaned, and Powers loved that happy sound. The duvet cradled him, and Devon held his arms out wide. “It’s luxurious.”

  “Yes. I don’t have a lot of frilly things in my life, but I love softness and luxury.” He kicked off his shoes and lay next to Devon, rolling onto his side, watching as Devon shimmied on the covers. “And I love how you look here,” he added in a whisper.

  Devon rolled his head in his direction, and Powers slowly closed the distance between them, but didn’t go all the way. Powers wasn’t quite sure how Devon felt, even though he was at that moment in his bed, or at least on his bed… he still intended to let Devon make the move and come the last bit of the way.

  Conflict raged inside him. He wanted Devon, but his earlier jump to conclusions still hung in his mind. Devon would have been a fool not to think about it, for at least a few seconds, and Powers never thought Devon was foolish.

  Powers lay still, just inches from Devon, heat radiating off him, the room filling with desire that wrapped around him more and more with each passing second. Powers hoped that Devon knew he could trust him, but maybe that had been shattered. No one was perfect, so when Devon closed the distance, their lips touching, Powers’s spirit soared in the rightness that settled over him.

  A sigh, soft and gentle, escaped from Devon as he gave himself over to what Powers offered. He rolled onto his side and let Powers tug him closer, his leg sliding between Powers’s, their hips pressing together as Powers slid nearer, his heat surrounding them in a bubble of passion that built as Powers deepened their kiss, cradling Devon’s head in his large hand.

  The molten heat of unabashed desire slammed into Powers with such force that it surprised him. His mind reeled as he tried to keep control of his thoughts, but failed miserably as Powers rolled Devon back on the duvet, his weight pressing down on top of him. Devon spread his legs and wrapped them around Powers’s waist, signaling that he wanted him, and Powers’s heart soared.