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aloud.
    Willis grumbled under his breath. She smiled when he ended his muttered tirade with a huff.  
    “If you think he lied to you, it would be doubly foolish to hand over that sort of information. Someone might start asking where he got it and your recent visit would make you a prime suspect.”
    Very true. Someone probably would question where and how he came by the information. The government kept Garret on a short leash. He may have been free of the V-10 unit, but that freedom was an illusion as far as she was concerned…much as her own was. And now she’d probably put herself in the government’s scopes just by her quick visit.
    “Have the car ready in an hour,” she told Willis in the tone that let him know the topic was no longer open to discussion, then felt a large dollop of guilt for using it on him—Willis was family. No. Better. He accepted her for who and what she was.
    Willis drew in a sharp breath.
    “I’m going to finish up some work here,” she told him, “then go in to the studio.”
    And let it out. “Yes, Miss Idyllis.”  
    Willis left, the soft scent of Old Spice lingering in his wake.
    Willis was right. She’d been a fool to risk exposure like this. The back of her neck already itched with the thought of the surveillance she’d doubtlessly be under now. Nothing to be done about it other than lay low and hope to fly under the radar.
    “Which means getting to work,” she told herself, squaring her shoulders as she started up the grand staircase.
    ***
    During the last three hours, John had managed to drag up all the basics on Aria Octavia Idyllis and the music tycoon family that had founded Idyllis Records. Teigan thought the name seemed familiar, but he hadn’t connected it to the recording studio until John brought the company logo up on the screen.  
    Reading over John’s shoulder, Teigan wondered what Mr. Bruce Kennedy Idyllis would’ve thought of his daughter running the company. Reading between the lines, Teigan formed a picture of Bruce as a throwback to an earlier era. A true man’s man—or chauvinist, depending on your point of view—who believed women were decoration. Anything other than a job in fine arts was for a man, and business deals shouldn’t be made without a bottle of thirty-year-old scotch to seal the deal. Teigan was sure Bruce had expected the business to go to his son on his passing, but Aria’s twin brother died when he was sixteen.  
    Bruce had gone into heavy mourning after his son’s death—hitting the scotch by the barrelful if the tabloids could be believed—and passed away of liver disease just shy of six years later. With no male heir, he’d left the company to his wife, who’d quickly passed the reins on to her daughter. Then, less than two years ago, the mother died and Aria became not just CEO, but sole owner of the major studio.
    “There’s not much here after the initial media flood about her inheritance, and before that, nothing,” John complained again. It had been his constant litany said almost once every five minutes for the last hour. “You’d think she was Rapunzel, locked away from the world in a tower somewhere. The only things I can uncover are a couple tabloids and a bunch of dry interviews pimping her clients.”
    “Check the older media files, from before the brother’s death,” Teigan suggested. “There has to be something about the happy family.”
    “Images?” Carthridge asked from across the room where he leaned against the doorframe. He’d been bopping in and out while John worked his magic, dividing his attention between his rounds and the information John was digging up.  
    “We can hope,” Teigan replied.
    “Of her or him?” John asked.
    “Him,” Teigan answered. “They were twins. If we’re analyzing to see if they could have been Viadal’s, we can at least get an idea from his pictures as to whether it was possible.”  
    Teigan glanced over at Garret, propped against the back wall of the