Ultimate Courage (True Heroes #2)(28)
Rojas put his thumb and middle finger to his mouth and whistled to bring in the rest of the class. About half a dozen men and women approached with their dogs. Mostly herding and sporting class breeds this morning, plus Cannon’s hyper pug. “Everyone warm up with a jog around the outside of the course.”
Cannon gave him a wry smile, knowing the warm-up was mostly to get him running instead of his mouth. It wouldn’t hurt to burn off a little energy for the rest of the class, too. The dogs were all game for it, and their humans could use a few extra minutes of cardio.
After watching them all do a lap, Rojas joined them. He could do with burning off some excess energy, too.
Chapter Nine
An hour later he checked on Boom, then headed to the main building for a glass of water and figured he’d grab a glass for Elisa, too. They kept bottled water in a cooler out by the kennels for convenience, but using glasses was better for the environment, or so Boom told him repeatedly.
Or he could quit justifying his impulse to come by and check on Elisa.
They had an hour break between classes this morning, and there shouldn’t have been anyone in the front reception area besides her, but the sound of her talking accompanied by a low male voice came down the hallway. Rojas’s grip on the glasses tightened, sloshing water over the rims.
Muttering a curse, he relaxed and headed right on to the reception area. There was no good reason for him to get worked up about Elisa talking to a man. And if it was Cannon pursuing her, Rojas could always run the guy off. Especially if Cannon was making her uncomfortable.
As Rojas came around the entryway, taking the time to visually pie the corner out of habit, he noted there was no one in front of the reception desk. No. Whoever was talking to Elisa was behind the desk with her.
He entered the room and strode to the near end of the reception desk, setting the glasses down with a thunk. Elisa jumped in her chair and swung around to face him.
“Yo.” Cruz sat on the counter along the wall behind the desk area. Plenty of space between him and Elisa.
“Hey.” Rojas paused, sparing himself a moment to let go of the building anger he’d been gathering. “Didn’t recognize your voice from down the hallway. What, you swallow a frog?”
Cruz waved a hand. “Caught a cold on the flight back this morning. Lyn took it harder. She’s staying in bed until her fever goes down. But Forte said our new admin might need some additional IT set up to organize our stuff.”
Elisa gave Rojas a shy smile. “I’ve got the client spreadsheet started, but I figured it’d be good to set up a new calendar to help schedule the private lessons. Maybe set up a newsletter, too.”
Cruz nodded. “We’ve been using the private e-mails so long it’s about time somebody set up an e-mail and calendar specifically for the kennels. Elisa here is on the ball.”
Rojas agreed. He also wanted to tell Cruz to quit breathing on her, but his friend was sitting a decent distance away. “Maybe we have some vitamin supplements around here somewhere to ward off whatever plague you’ve got.”
Cruz pulled a tiny bottle from his pocket. “Have some hand sanitizer. Feel free to chug it.”
Elisa wrinkled her nose, laughter sparkling in her eyes.
Okay, at least she was being entertained. Rojas relaxed some. “Don’t let me stop you all from doing the tech thing. Carry on.”
Leaning over, he slid the glass of water across the desk to Elisa. She gave him a smile, and he figured it’d been worth the extra few steps into the kitchen after all. “Thank you.”
Cruz looked from Elisa to Rojas and lifted an eyebrow. Rojas pointedly ignored him.
“Back to what I was saying before someone interrupted. It’s safe to log in to any websites you need from the computers here.” Cruz tapped the laptop in front of Elisa. “Go ahead and create the accounts you need for the plans you had in mind: general e-mail for the kennels, calendar, newsletter. Just make a list of the sites where you created accounts so I know about them and can add them to the trusted sites list for the firewall.”
Cruz paused and gave Rojas a different, more sober look, then returned his attention to Elisa. “You can check your personal e-mail and online stuff here, too. We won’t pry, and you keep your own passwords to yourself. We’re set up with a proxy server, so it’d be hard for anyone to track you down by IP address. But if you’re someplace else on Wi-Fi or at a public computer terminal, log in using a free proxy site.”
Apparently, Cruz had talked to Forte before coming to meet Elisa. Good. The three of them kept each other in the know when it came to important information.
“I…” She hesitated, glanced at Rojas and sat up a little straighter, then pressed onward. “I use an incognito window.”
Rojas liked the way she was gaining confidence. Yesterday, he thought she might have held her peace and not spoken up. He was not going to admit that her warming up to Cruz was getting under his skin, though. Nope.
Cruz bobbed his head to one side then the other. “An incognito window isn’t horrible, but it’s insufficient. It protects the computer you’re using from any websites that leave cookies or similar information-gathering tools on your machine. It doesn’t hide your tracks, your IP address.”
And that was at least one way her ex had been able to find her in the past. Rojas figured there were any number of ways the * had tracked her, maybe laughed every time he’d found her location by tracking down her IP address. It didn’t take much specialized skill, either. Once a person learned how to look, an insane amount of information was available to the regular public.