Chapter Two
Adam lounged against one of the ornate pillars in the ballroom, one eye on the door. He’d finally convinced Tanya, his inebriated dancing partner, to head home with the promise that he’d call her tomorrow. A blatant lie, but that was par for the course in his business.
The speeches wrapped up with a standing ovation for the President of the University. The theme of his speech was “integrity,” which Adam found ironic given the underground activities of their newest Board member.
As the applause faded and the orchestra began to play, he turned fully to face the doors. Just as he expected, the woman in white sequins popped back in the room. Eyes shining, her cheeks were flushed and she was breathing hard. Whatever she’d been doing for the last thirty minutes, it had gotten her heart rate up.
He blew out a long breath. Fuck. Just looking at her got his heart rate up. Earlier he’d admired her legs from across the room. Upon closer viewing, he could confirm that they were the best he’d ever seen. Yet they were nothing compared to her face.
He wasn’t certain exactly what it was about it that he liked so much. She had a wide mouth, straight nose, and high cheekbones—but they were more girl-next-door than movie star. The eyes, he decided now. It was the eyes that took her to a whole other level. She had huge brown eyes, surrounded by black lashes that were so thick they had to be fake.
The wig was driving him nuts. It hid too much of her. He couldn’t see her eyebrows or her ears. Hell, he couldn’t even really see the shape of her face.
What was she up to? He’d bet big money this was her first attempt at role-playing. The inappropriate wig and ridiculous British accent would give her away to anyone looking for it. Most people weren’t, obviously, and he grudgingly had to admit that even if the execution wasn’t top notch, the idea was good. The wig, provocative dress, and accent together were a good combination for hiding what she actually looked and sounded like.
Which made him just the slightest bit crazy to see what she actually looked and sounded like.
So, he’d been waiting for her. She did owe him one for the assist in her pickpocket nonsense. He’d felt sorry for her on the dance floor, watching her put up with getting groped by that imbecile, straining to pull that card out of his pocket. Her face looked so miserable when the song ended. He couldn’t resist. It had been easy for him to purposefully spin top-heavy Tanya right into them. Just to see what the woman in the wig would do.
Her reaction time and instincts were impressive. When given the chance, she hadn’t hesitated. The card disappeared into her dress in seconds.
The woman had quick hands.
Now, she paused in the doorway, her eyes focused on the weasel she’d been dancing with. Adam knew why—she needed to return the keycard. Keycard entries to secure locations were generally logged. If the little weasel reported his card missing, any security program worth its salt would audit its last known use. Whatever the woman in white sequins had done, she wouldn’t want a log of it.
The weasel stood in a group of people next to the stage, forlornly scanning the dancers, no doubt wondering what happened to the hottest woman to ever talk to him. Adam leaned back against the pillar again and waited for the show. He wondered how she’d slide the card back in his pocket. Would she do it seductively? Or pretend that the weasel had dropped it somehow?
But the woman didn’t stride across the room to rejoin him, as Adam had expected. Instead, she bit her lip and retreated into the corner of the room, fully concealing herself behind another pillar. She was...hiding?
This was interesting. It was one thing to wear a disguise to prevent people from remembering your actual, normal appearance or security cameras from getting a true, representative image. It was quite another to wear one so that people wouldn’t recognize you. If she was hiding, that meant someone in the room could possibly recognize her true identity.
Man, he did love a puzzle. After a quick stop at the bar for two glasses of champagne, he sauntered over to her hiding place.
To her credit, she didn’t even jump in her heels when he appeared by her pillar. A slight narrowing of her eyes and purse of those full lips was the only indication she was annoyed by his presence. “Hello again,” he said. “Sasha, was it?”
“Indeed,” she responded, with a tight smile. “And you are?”
Amazing eyes. Wide-set, enormous, and such a chocolatey brown. He wanted to give that wig a good yank and see if her hair matched. Instead, he gave her an easy smile. Who was he tonight? Ah, right. “Michael Collins.”
Her lip quirked and her small smile looked a touch more genuine. “Like the Irish patriot and revolutionary?”
She was a quick one. “You a history buff, Blondie?” he asked.
“A bit.” she returned. “He was a rather dashing character. Easy to remember.” Her English accent was actually improving, he noted with amusement. Earlier she sounded like Bridget Jones, and now she was closer to royalty.
She looked over his shoulder, and he followed her gaze. The weasel was still standing on the edge of the dance floor, next to an older man with shaggy gray hair. “Please don’t let me keep you if you need to return to your boyfriend.”
She couldn’t quite suppress the shudder. He didn’t blame her. The thought of the weasel as her boyfriend made him want to throw up too. It must be the gray-haired man next to the weasel that was keeping her from returning the keycard, he realized. She didn’t want to get closer to him.
Ignoring his last comment, she pointed to the two glasses in his hands. “Is one of those for me or do you just like to carry around a spare?”
He handed one over, waited for her to take a large sip. Let’s see how she handled a direct approach. “Would you like me to return the stolen keycard for you?”
She didn’t choke on the champagne. In fact, she barely stiffened. He found himself just the tiniest bit impressed. For an amateur, she was remarkably composed. “Pardon?”
He just smirked. “You know, the keycard in your bra strap? The one I helped you to get by knocking over its owner?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said primly, but her eyes had widened at his admission of assistance.
That high-class accent just tickled him. He winked at her. “Blondie, you do realize that most current Brits don’t actually sound like Lady Mary when they talk, right? Did you practice the accent by watching a lot of Downton Abbey?”
Now she did freeze, eyes wide, and he fully expected her to walk away.
She shocked him by laughing. Hard. It was a throaty rumble that made parts of him suddenly stand at attention. Her shoulders shook and her eyes watered. “Yes,” she gasped. And kept on laughing.
When she got control of herself, she just continued right on in the English accent, despite the fact that she knew she was busted. “I actually started with Mary Poppins,” she confided, “but the songs kept getting stuck in my head and drove me insane.”
“Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?” he guessed, grinning down at her.
“Actually, it was ‘A Spoonful of Sugar’ that made me want to throw myself out a window,” she answered, suddenly sounding a lot like Julie Andrews.
He chuckled. Even if she was a newbie, Adam couldn’t remember the last time he’d met such a funny—or beautiful—woman in his line of work. As he watched, her clever fingers delved into the side of her dress and retrieved the keycard. “Ta da,” she said, with a rueful twist on her lips.
He thought about the surrounding buildings. Across the street, the University’s art museum housed a large collection of religious paintings and artifacts. He didn’t do art, himself, but he happened to know the security in that particular building was not as tight as most museums. Perhaps because there wasn’t anything of really high value on premises. But maybe this woman didn’t know that...or maybe she was cutting her teeth on easier jobs. Smart, actually. Beyond the keycard, she would have needed a set of tools. She wasn’t carrying a purse and there was no space in that dress to hide even the smallest of kits. More likely, she’d stashed her necessities near her intended target.
He inclined his head at the keycard. He was just too curious not to ask. “What did you take?”
Her expression went from amused to furious in one blink of those brown eyes. “I did not steal anything,” she said, enunciating each word crisply. Without the English accent.
She just kept surprising him. Lifting her chin, she threw back her shoulders, giving him the distinct impression she was about to storm away. But then she looked over his shoulder again. “Oh no,” she said, her words urgent. “He’s leaving.” He turned to see the weasel and the gray-haired man walking out of the ballroom together, headed for the coat check next to the elevators.
Accompanied by Maurice Knoll.
The three men walked casually, but Adam’s instincts told him something important was happening. Even if the woman in the wig hadn’t been in the ballroom tonight, tiny alarm bells would have gone off at the sight of these three unlikely men walking together. Something about the way Knoll was speaking out of the side of his mouth and glancing around. Something about the way the gray-haired man was nodding deferentially. Something about the way the weasel simpered at them before looking down at his Staff Member of the Year trophy.
Well, well, well. Something about his business and the woman in white’s business was overlapping. Maybe she knew the answer to his question about Knoll. This night just kept getting more interesting.
She looked up at him with the keycard between her fingers and a pleading expression in those black-fringed eyes. “Can you please put this back in his pocket?” Without the fake British changing its pitch and inflection, her voice was low and melodic. A good thing, because he planned to hear a lot more of it tonight.
He took the card in his left hand. “Wait here,” he demanded.
Knoll, the gray-haired man, and the weasel were waiting in the coat check line. He cut behind them and tapped the weasel on the shoulder.
When he turned, Adam held out his right hand to shake. “Just wanted to apologize again for the dust-up earlier.”
The weasel looked surprised, but held out his hand. “No worries,” he mumbled. Adam shook his hand firmly with his right hand, while using his left to slide the card back in the weasel’s pocket. Classic redirection—give someone one large, tangible experience to focus on so they don’t notice the other. It wasn’t the same pocket the card was in earlier, but he didn’t think the weasel was sober enough to notice.
Turning, he strode back into the ballroom. This was fascinating. What did the woman need the keycard for, if she wasn’t stealing? And how did it relate to her not wanting to be seen by the gray-haired man, who had surreptitious dealings with Knoll?
Adrenaline flooded through his veins as he headed back to her pillar hiding place. Even though he executed his projects with OCD-like focus, there was absolutely nothing like the rush of surprises.
He didn’t much care for the surprise that waited for him behind the pillar, however. The woman was gone.
* * *
Jess’s neighborhood pub, AJ Hudson’s, was almost empty on Monday night at 9:00 pm. She climbed onto her usual barstool and pulled her laptop out of her backpack.
“Coffee or bourbon?” Geoffrey asked, slapping down a napkin in front of her.
She gave him an affectionate smile. She’d always liked the red-haired, grizzled owner, and had come to practically love him in the past year. He had to know about the scandal; everyone did. But he never mentioned it. Well, other than to give her a free shot every now and then while muttering, “Fuck ’em all, Jessie, right?”
She slid off her windbreaker, but burrowed into her old Cubs fleece. Anyone who thought that April was in spring had clearly never lived in Chicago. At least the tavern would only be cold until 10:00. Some old-building weirdness always made the radiant heat crank on at that time, flooding the bar with hot air—even if it was seventy degrees outside. It was a nightly source of complaint for the regulars.
“Coffee tonight.”
Geoffrey snorted. “Nobody in the bar and she orders a coffee. Can’t even order one Knob Creek to make it worth my while to come to work?” But he was smiling as he filled a chipped white mug and slid it in front of her.
Jess made a show of examining her watch. “Only one more week until the Cubs’ home opener, old man. Then I’ll have to fight for my usual seat.” She’d lived in the west Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago for almost ten years. Wrigley Field was a mile away, and baseball season supported most of the local bars well enough for them to survive the long, emptier winters.
She put her hands around the coffee cup to warm them and waited for her computer to boot up. It was strange how easily she’d taken to nocturnal habits after so many years in a more traditional schedule. Before she’d been fired, she went to work every day by 7:30 and she’d stayed until at least 6:00. Sometimes she had dates or dinner with her dad and brothers, but she rarely stayed awake past 10:00. Now, however, it was rare for her to go to bed before two or three in the morning.
“Still can’t get over how weird you look.” Geoff shook his head at her. “You’re all...tan.” The word was spit out with distaste.
Jess rolled her eyes. “I was in Florida for four months with my brother. It’s sunny there.” Andrew, the youngest sibling, hadn’t shared the view held by her three other brothers and her father, that the firing and scandal were definitely her fault. She still couldn’t believe how much it stung when they hadn’t listened to her version of events. She hadn’t even seen them since she returned. She was pretty sure they wished she’d stayed in Sarasota.
Geoff wasn’t impressed with her defense. “Skinny too.” With a meaningful glance at the cash register on the corner of the bar, he slid her a menu.
“Subtle,” Jess said. “Fine. I’ll take some crispy pickles.” Her stomach grumbled and she couldn’t blame it. She’d eaten dinner, but that had been hours ago and she’d gone for a five-mile run along the lake today. Geoff was right about her weight loss.
It wasn’t a vanity thing. She just had a lot of time on her hands and a lot of depression and rage to burn off.
But now she had another outlet to handle some of that rage. A frisson of excitement ran down her spine. She pulled out her own wireless hotspot and connected to it. AJ’s had free wireless, but she could never do what she was doing on someone else’s network. Time to see what my little worm dug up.
As a sliver of guilt joined the excitement, Jess squirmed on her stool and took a deep breath. No more stalling. She’d spent all day Sunday waffling before finally deciding that it was too late to turn back now. She’d already committed the illegal act, and it wasn’t exactly the first. In her months of unemployment and desperation to understand what had happened to her, she’d helped herself electronically to some private information. But this felt different. Ignatius had been an essential part of her life for so long. Invading it now felt...dirty. She’d stolen access and uploaded a series of bugs to the University’s network, for God’s sake. But looking at the data now was just the crescendo of her crimes; the damage had already been done.
She still couldn’t quite believe she’d actually pulled it off. With a little help. Jess frowned into her coffee. Technically she’d been caught. The frown turned into a reluctant smile. Caught, yes, but by the best-looking man she’d ever seen. And he hadn’t been appalled, or even that surprised. In fact, he seemed to think she was up to something even more nefarious.
Thank goodness she’d noticed the staff exit from the ballroom earlier in the evening. Once she saw the keycard go back into Jerome’s pocket with her own eyes, she’d fled into the kitchen. She pretended to be lost and tipsy until a busboy took pity on her and put her on the staff elevator to the first floor, where he walked her out the back entrance.
Sorry, Michael Collins, or whatever your name is. As much as she’d been tempted to stay right where he commanded, she needed to escape. He couldn’t know who she actually was or her entire plan would go right down the toilet. Hell, forget the plan. He could report her to the police and she’d go to jail.
Why had she admitted her keycard theft to him anyway? Sure, he’d seen her do it. But she could have ignored his questions. She could have walked away. Why had she opened up to him? Something to do with the twinkle in his eyes and the faint lines around them, she decided. He clearly knew what he was doing and maybe that experience, combined with his utter lack of judgment was what made her let down her guard. Stupid? Maybe. But ultimately the right call since he helped her return the keycard. And ultimately harmless, since she was able to escape.
She couldn’t help but wonder about his abrupt change in behavior in those last few seconds. Almost the entire time they’d been talking, he was light-hearted, teasing. But when he saw Jerome with Seymour and the mysterious Maurice Knoll, his entire demeanor changed. The amused, flirtatious persona vanished, replaced with a look of single-minded intensity.
It was truly unfortunate she needed to flee. Because on his face, intensity looked even better than amusement.
Her laptop beeped, indicating that it was finished running her custom encryption programs. She glanced around, noting the few other patrons at the far end of the bar. “Geoff, I’m moving,” she called, pointing to a booth in the corner. She needed her laptop screen facing the wall. It was just too risky.
Geoff acknowledged her with a nod of his head, and she made the move. With a quick prayer for forgiveness, she raised her fingers over her keyboard, prepared to bring up the browser that would lead her to the Dark Web.
She didn’t hear his footsteps. One moment it seemed that she was very alone in the dark corner of the bar. The next, he was standing next to her table, those electric-blue eyes roving over every inch of her face. Her hands froze in the air.
“Hello, Blondie.”