One Good Reason (Boston Love #3)(8)

The group of twelve cater-waiters disperses faster than high schoolers at a cop-busted kegger.

Mara looks at me, a box of cigarettes clasped tight in her hand. “You coming?”

I shake my head. “Don’t smoke.”

“I’m quitting. Just… not tonight.” A sheepish grin lights up her whole face. “See you in a few.”

I wait until everyone’s cleared out, then hustle through the side door and beeline for the small women’s bathroom at the end of the hall. The event is almost entirely male businessmen, so it’s blessedly deserted — marking, perhaps, the only time in my life I’ve ever been thankful for that pesky glass ceiling the female CEOs smacked into when hoping for an invitation to this shindig. The handful of women actually in attendance are all using the fancy ballroom bathrooms, not trekking down the hall in their Manolos to this one. I should be totally under the radar, here.

Flipping the deadbolt behind me, I pull open the cabinets beneath the sink, push aside several bottles of cleaning products, and slide out the black backpack I stashed inside earlier. In less than a minute, I’ve shimmied out of the god-awful uniform and into a tight-fitting black ball gown with whisper-thin straps, a lace bodice, and a flared hem which falls just far enough to conceal my flats. Without letting myself consider the ramifications of this monumentally stupid plan, I shove the uniform into the backpack along with the itchy black wig, zip it closed, and stash it out of sight in the cabinet.

I hate wasting a few precious moments on my hair, but it can’t be helped. There’s a lot of it, and after being stuffed beneath the wig for two hours, it’s flat and frizzy. I run my fingers under the tap for a moment, then work them the through the blonde mane to give it a little life. Scraping the pile into an up-do, I fasten it with a pretty tortoiseshell clip barely wide enough to contain the riot of waves. One swipe of lipstick is all I bother with for makeup. Staring at the blonde, blue eyed girl in the mirror, I pinch my cheeks for added color and examine my disguise. Not perfect, but good enough.

It has to be — there’s no more time to waste.

I duck out of the bathroom a moment later looking entirely different from the pale, dark-haired waiter who entered. From a distance, no one will recognize me. And if I’m caught, chances are a security guard will be much more lenient with a pretty party guest than a rogue member of the wait staff. It’s a hell of a lot easier to flirt your way out of a jam dressed in BCBG couture than a unisex button-down.

Moving on silent feet down the dimly lit hall, I scan door numbers as I pass.

4017

4020

4023

Copy room, storage room, conference room. All useless to me.

I keep going, growing more nervous the farther from the reception I get. Minutes tick by on my watch, taunting me like a child’s hide-and-go-seek countdown.

Thirteen.

Twelve.

Eleven.

I finally spot what I’m looking for at the end of the hall. My pace increases as I hurry to it.

Ready or not, here I come.

I don’t turn on the light as I crack open the door and step into the dark office. Moonlight shines through the wall of glass on my left, bright enough to illuminate the shape of a cubicle and — finally! — a computer console. My fingers tap impatiently against the shiny wood desk as I wait for it to power on.

Ten minutes.

When the home screen loads, I’m confronted with a password-protected login. I plunk myself into the leather swivel chair and punch in a quick series of commands to toggle the computer’s terminal window. Green code text flows across the console as I type a few keystrokes to bypass the security system. For anyone who knows even the smallest amount of code, it’s shockingly easy to access a “private” computer account.

Thanks for that, Microsoft. It makes my job a hell of a lot easier.

Once I’m in, I reach into my bra and fish out the flash drive that’s been digging into my ribcage all night. It’s still warm from my body as I pop it into the USB port and wait for the sluggish system to recognize the hardware. A glance at my watch makes my pulse skyrocket.

Seven minutes.

It takes only seconds for the virus I built to worm into the Lancaster Consolidated network, but that’s only phase one of my plan.

Infect.

Retrieve.

Escape.

I don’t have time to weed through mountains of computer data to find the financial files I need, so I copy the entire hard drive. The lightning-fast 512 GB storage stick cost more than my monthly rent payment, but at times like this it really comes in handy. Any self-respecting hacker needs one.

Well, that, and an endless supply of candy and caffeine.

My fingers tap nervous rhythms against the shitty particleboard as I wait. This office clearly doesn’t belong to one of the executives. A lower-level manager, perhaps, or an accountant. That’s fine, though — every computer in this building is on the same network, like Christmas lights on a string. Crack one fuse, you’ve cracked them all.

Easy.

So long as you don’t get caught, that is.

If I end up in jail for this shit, I will personally kill Luca.

The file transfer takes a long time. Too long.

My gaze flips back and forth between the data percentage bar, inching closer to completion at a glacial place, and the face of my watch, where minutes dwindle from five to four to three. By the time the computer pings to signify the transfer is complete, I have less than two minutes to get back to the bathroom, whip off this dress, and change into my catering uniform.