Hope is Rising

24. Undiscovered Secrets

"I'll be there as soon as I can," I told Landon.

I sighed as I set my phone down and finished eating my cereal.

"What's the matter, babe?" Dylan asked me as he rinsed his dishes in the sink.

"Half of the work from our software presentation has disappeared," I replied.

"Well, you can focus on work today, and I'll make sure Kevin stays out of trouble," he looked at me with his perfect green eyes.

I thought about Kevin. I decided I should probably wake him and tell him my plans for the day.

"I'll go check on him," I told Dylan.

He nodded as I walked toward Kevin's room.

"Kev, wake up," I nudged him as I sat on the side of his bed.

He groaned in pain as he turned over.

"I'm going to work, but Dylan's here if you need anything."

"I don't want you going outside. It's dangerous," Kevin said sitting up quickly, causing him sharp pain.

"Whoah, lie down," I said seeing him wince in pain. "There's a glitch at work that I need to fix, but I'll be home for dinner."

"Promise me you'll be careful," Kevin pleaded, "I don't want you getting hurt."

"I promise," I replied. He grabbed my hand as his head fell back on the pillow. He was back asleep in minutes.

I went back to the kitchen to find Dylan drinking a cup of tea and working on his laptop.

"Kevin has never looked this bad," I said to Dylan. "I'm worried about him. Maybe I should stay home."

He gently tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

"I think you should go. Your software team needs you. I'll make sure Kevin stays out of trouble and gets what he needs."

I smiled as Dylan's words comforted me.

"Thank you for everything that you've done--," I began.

He quickly leaned forward pressing his lips on mine. His large hands traced my sides before I reluctantly broke away, remembering the amount of work waiting for me at the office.

"No need to thank me, little one," he replied.

He began to lean in again.

I pulled back as a smile formed on my lips. "I should go."

"Just one more kiss?"

I turned away grinning, "The sooner I leave, the sooner I'm home."

"You're such a tease," he whined jokingly.

I left the house and drove to the base. As soon opened the door to the office, I felt the eyes of my team penetrating me.

I set my bag down and came over to their computer. This lost information was the key to our success as a team. Without it, we were locked out of everything.

"Steph, what do we do now?" Stella asked me.

"Someone did this purposely in order to sabotage us," said Owen angrily.

"We don't have any evidence of that," Landon responded.

"Unless, I find some," he replied.

We all were all silent for a minute.

"Landon, when can we be finished if we continue on?" I asked him.

"It took us five days to finish it last time," Landon said.

"We don't have five days this time," Stella added. "We have one."

"Then, we will have to continue adding on where it now leaves off," I began.

Owen was still convinced that we had enemies. For the next eight hours, my team and I worked tirelessly, only taking a break when needed.

By almost the end of the day, we were only 65% finished.

"I'll be back," Owen said grabbing a mug and going toward the break room.

"I'll come too," I said needing coffee to keep going.

The hallway was quiet except for a pair of heels in the distance.

"I still think someone is behind this," Owen said to me, brewing the whole matter over in his head.

"What are you guys talking about?" I heard a voice that made me cringe.

"Oh, nothing important," I replied, turning to talk to Anna.

"I see, so this wouldn't have anything to do with stolen information, now would it?" she said piously.

"It's not your business," I croaked.

"It is if I knew who stole it," she replied.

"What do you know?" Owen inquired.

She hesitated, "Well, I've found that some people just can't be trusted, especially when you don't realize they are two sided. I mean, they act like they care about you, but they turn around and take an undeserving person to coffee, ask a nobody to the 100th year navy dance, and delete important data."

I knew exactly what she was referring to--my previous meeting at the coffee shop with Landon that had upset her and her chances of going to the navy dance.

"How dare you blame Landon!" I exclaimed. "He would never betray us. After all the work he put in, he wouldn't mess up the chances for his own team," I added.

"Unless, he has been offered a new job position as the head of his own team. Some new data to work off of would give him a head start over you and every other team here," Anna smiled slyly as she returned to her normal quick pace down the hall.