“A latte would be great,” she said as she followed Sonya down the hallway. The walls were a soft gray, with black-and-white photos from various events—mainly weddings—hanging every couple feet. All happy, smiling people. There were also a few images of clearly custom-made cakes and a couple brides in couture dresses.
Sonya showed Kathryn to a conference room that was feminine and comfortable. It was also filled with art showcasing the company’s events—more happy people. This was nothing like the boring boardrooms she’d been in so many times before as part of her job.
“Make yourself comfortable. Helen is running a little bit behind, but she’ll be with you within the next ten minutes. And I’ll be back with your drink. Oh, we’ve also got petit fours and scones if you’re interested. They’re all from the bakery we use for weddings.”
Under normal circumstances Kathryn would’ve said yes to all of the food, but not right now. Her stomach was knotted too tight. “I’m going to pass on the food, but would you mind telling me where your restrooms are?”
“Of course.” She pointed down the hallway and gave brief directions before hurrying off in the other direction in five-inch stilettos.
Kathryn left most of her stuff on the table but slipped out her slim laptop and tucked it in the back of her skirt, then adjusted her jacket over it. She ducked out of the conference room and hurried down the hallway, her heart racing.
She’d completed almost fifty infiltrations over the last few years and had been successful with every single one of them. But it felt weird to be hacking into Daniel MacArthur’s system. It was what he’d paid her boss for, but still, knowing he was in the building right now while she worked was strange. It also made her really, really not want to get caught. When he’d hired Tony to do this random check of security, Tony had only given him a vague week’s time frame for when he should expect the hack to occur. It wouldn’t do them much good if they knew exactly when to look for a hack because they would have tightened security.
The restroom was empty so she hurried into one of the stalls and unlocked the door. Then she sat on the toilet lid and got to work, her keyboard whisper quiet. A minute later when she heard someone step inside, she paused for only a moment before getting back to work. When she heard water running and then the hand dryer, she breathed a sigh of relief as she slid her way into the building’s security system.
The way his system had been created, anyone who wanted access had to be in the building to infiltrate it. And right now she was hacking into a Wi-Fi modem that hadn’t been updated within the last couple days. It was how she would eventually work her way into the rest of the system. She wouldn’t be able to get into his financials or anything, but she would be able to screw with his security system, which was a huge deal if someone wanted to do a specific type of job against his place.
Once she’d maneuvered through a back door and left a little message for the security team, she tucked her laptop back in her skirt and hurried out, washing her hands and drying them before booking it back to the conference room. She was just getting settled and taking a sip of her now almost cold latte when a woman with a whole lot of blonde hair and a big smile hurried into the room.
“I’m Helen, and I’m so sorry I’m late,” she said.
It was hard not to smile at the woman. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just relaxing in this wonderful conference room. I love the way you’ve set everything up.” Instead of all stiff-backed chairs, there were a couple individual seating areas filled with cushy chairs in shades of purple and gray.
“Thank you. Are you hungry? Need a refill?” Helen asked as she shook Kathryn’s hand and sat across from her in a matching tufted purple chair.
“No, I’m fine, but thank you.”
The woman’s phone buzzed a few times but she ignored it.
“Do you need to get that?”
“Normally I would say no—normally I wouldn’t even have it on me, but I might need to grab this. There’s been some type of breach downstairs and security is going crazy. I think they might end up doing a walk-through of each of our floors, since we rent from the MacArthur Company and their security oversees the whole building.”
“Did you want to reschedule? If it would make it easier for you?” Kathryn really hoped so, because then she wouldn’t have to go through a whole charade and lie to the woman. Even though this was a free consultation, Kathryn’s employer would end up sending a check to Helen for wasting her time. It was the only thing that eased her guilt at taking up Helen’s time under false pretenses.
“Oh, no, I don’t want to do that.” But Kathryn could see that the woman did want to do just that.
So she stood and smiled. “Look, I’ve heard great things about your company. Let’s just reschedule for later in the week, okay? That way no one’s rushed or stressed out.”
Relief spread across the woman’s face as she stood. “I think that might be better. And I will make sure my assistant reschedules you immediately.”
Kathryn squashed another bit of guilt she experienced because she wouldn’t be rescheduling at all, but that was just part of this job.
It didn’t take long to make it down to the lobby. Kathryn couldn’t fight the nerves humming through her as she descended in the elevator. Once she stepped out into the lobby, she spotted Daniel talking to two security guys forty feet away. Good, he was occupied.
The main exit had a bunch of men and women standing there, talking to her partner, Quincy. She was too far away to hear how the conversation was going, but he’d done this enough times that she knew exactly how Quincy was playing this thing off. Right now he’d be claiming that everything had just been a prank. Usually he could convince people he was harmless—he had that whole charming boyish thing about him.
She wasn’t sure if it would work on Daniel’s people, but as long as she got out of the building, that was all that mattered. Because they couldn’t arrest Quincy for anything. He might get fined, but then of course it would get thrown out once Daniel realized they were the ones he had actually hired to scan the security here.
Moving quickly, she cursed her loud heels as she hurried toward the front door. Pulling out her phone, she stopped herself from looking in Daniel’s direction even though she didn’t actually pull up anything on her screen. Sooooo close. She was almost to the exit.
“Ma’am? Ma’am?”
Jolted out of her internal getaway pep talk, she turned to find a man in a security uniform striding toward her. “Yes?” she asked.
“We’re checking the bags of everyone who leaves. I’m going to need you to come with me over to the tables we’ve got set up.” He motioned to where they had indeed set up a handful of tables off to one side and were now checking everyone’s bags like at an airport.
She stared at him, acting confused. “What? Why?”
“Henry, it’s fine,” Daniel said, hurrying over toward them. His gaze flicked down to her left hand, his expression darkening for an instant before he looked back at Henry again. “She’s fine.”
“But Mr. MacArthur, protocol says—”
“I know what the protocol says. She’s fine.”