As he opens the computer, he motions through the glass wall to one of the women from his team, who walks over to the server room.
“Colleen is going to run some additional diagnostics,” he explains. “As soon as she gives me the thumbs up, we’re ready to go.”
Colleen gives her signal to Gage.
He pushes the start button, and my computer boots up. He bypasses the password and opens my Python coding screen. Pushing a few buttons, he puts in a basic command. Colleen watches from across the room. When he gives a thumbs up and sets the command, the room is silent. We’re all holding our breath as we wait to see if it works.
The screen goes black, and the reboot starts.
I sigh audibly.
“We did anticipate that,” Gage says. “We haven’t made any changes to the code, but Colleen’s able to watch you on the network now and capture the error code that comes up when it happens.”
Her brow creased, Colleen walks back into the conference room, shaking her head. “You’re on the network, and then it’s as if you log off.”
Gage clears his throat. “We’ve gone through your code—which looks pretty impressive—and we’re not able to see what’s triggering the reboot. We’ll continue to run a few tests. Are you okay working from The Adams for a few more days?”
I look over at Landon, since it doesn’t matter if I’m okay with it; it’s more a matter of whether he’s okay with it.
He nods.
“I suppose so,” I say. “I just don’t want to encroach on Landon’s prolific love life.”
“The girls can make us both breakfast,” he quips.
I look over at Claire to see her dropping her head into her hands, and everyone in the room snickers. We spend the next forty minutes discussing logistics before the meeting finally breaks up.
Gage and his tech team move to another conference room across from the server room. Jim asks Landon, Claire, and me to remain.
“I spoke with Yolanda about what happened this morning,” he begins.
“It was my fault,” I respond immediately. “Tomas had the wrong idea and wanted something from me. I think Yolanda made things pretty clear for the future, though.”
Jim clicks a few buttons on his tablet and turns it around. It’s a TubeIt page, and the video shows me talking to Tomas in the lobby of the Y. The entire interaction is recorded, along with my walking away. You can hear what Tomas says, and he looks at the camera before following me and grabbing my arm. Yolanda comes into the shot, grabs him, and puts him down.
My hand goes to my mouth. “Who recorded this?”
Jim clicks a few things, and a security feed from the Y comes up. There’s no sound, but it shows a black-and-white view of most of the lobby, which I’m guessing comes from a camera stationed to the wall. “Do you know who this woman is?” he asks.
I look at the image of a dark-haired woman with pale skin. “She looks familiar, but I can’t place her. What does she have to do with this?”
“The video was uploaded to TubeIt less than an hour ago from this woman’s account. The name on the account is Bridget Shepherd. Does that sound familiar?”
I shake my head and look over at Claire and Landon. “I ran into Tomas last Friday and invited him out for drinks with the three of us.” I turn to Jim. “Was any of that recorded and posted, too?”
“We’ll check. The link to this footage was sent to a private group. We’re looking into who the members are.”
“What should I do?”
“For now, don’t go anywhere without Yolanda.”
I nod.
“And, let’s continue to have you work at Landon’s apartment in The Adams.”
“Of course.”
“You can’t go back to the Y,” Landon insists.
“We’d prefer you not go back for the time being,” Jim agrees.
“I have a pool. It’s certainly not Olympic size, but you can always swim there. It’s heated,” Landon adds.
“Okay,” I murmur.
My head is bouncing around. The conversation with Tomas was pretty innocuous. He was a bit too friendly, and I kindly reminded him I was seeing someone. Then he got all aggressive. That didn’t make much sense.
What the hell is going on?
After Jim and Landon leave, Claire comes and sits next to me. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know. Today has not turned out like I expected when I got out of bed this morning.”
“Do you want to take the day? We can head up to my place in St. Helena? Maybe spend the day at Meritage?”
I shake my head. “No, I should get some work done.”
“How about lunch then, at the Waterfront Café? I’ll invite some friends, and afterward, you and Yolanda can walk the last bit to The Adams.”
“Sure, why not?”
I stop in the kitchen to look for something to lighten my mood. But as I stare at the fridge, full of every kind of soda you could ever want, and the bar full of snacks, I can’t make up my mind.
I don’t hear or see Landon come in, until he says, “Are you okay?”
I jump, startled, and turn to find him smirking. “I’ll get there. It’s a bit disconcerting to see that someone has posted a polite interaction that went sideways on TubeIt.”
“You were a complete lady. He was the ass.”
“Thanks.” I look around to make sure no one else has snuck up on us. “You’re only saying that to get into my pants.”
“You’re like a sister to me. That would be disgusting.” He smiles broadly and wiggles his eyebrows.
“Okay, big brother. Claire and I are meeting her friends for lunch at the Waterfront Café, and then
