White-Hot Hack (Kate and Ian #2)(30)

And they said chivalry was dead.

Ian was already hard at work in the conference room. After they finished their donuts, he resumed scanning the network and sent Kate out to make another sweep of the building. “Today is phase two. You can be a little more visible. Feel free to chat with anyone who strikes up a conversation. Be sure to swing by the IT department to see what they’re up to, and make note of how many people you see going in and out of the server room.”

“Anything else?”

“Try a little shoulder-surfing. I guarantee you’ll enjoy it.”

Kate followed the same circuit she’d walked the day before and visited all five floors of the building as well as the break rooms. When she was finished, she made her way slowly up and down the aisles between the rows of cubicles and watched over the employees’ shoulders as they typed in their passwords after returning to their desks. Then she went into the break room to get a cup of coffee and check in with Ian.

Kate: I just watched three employees type in the world’s least secure password of #1234. I watched another type in catfetish1@. What is wrong with these people?

Ian: catfetish1@ is actually preferable in this scenario. Harder to crack.

Kate: I’m going down to the first floor. I’m curious to see how freaky they are in accounting.

She strolled nonchalantly down the rows of the accounts payable department. A young man returned to his cubicle with a cup of coffee in his hand. Kate was standing a safe distance behind him, watching as he set down his coffee and typed in his password—gamerboystud7—when she sensed a presence next to her. It was the girl from that morning who hadn’t been able to buzz them in because her hands were as full as Kate’s.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi.”

Gamerboystud7 turned around and shot Kate a curious look, so she quickly moved back toward the center of the aisle.

The girl fell in beside her as she walked away. “I’m Ashley.”

Kate panicked momentarily because she blanked on the name she was using, but right before the delay in her response would have become awkward, she said, “Jeannine.”

“Do you work on this floor?”

“I’m here on a temp assignment. I’m working with Legal on a special project.”

“Legal’s on the fourth floor. This is Accounting.”

“I had to come down for some more files.”

Ashley tilted her head. “What kind of files?”

“Job descriptions. I’ll be floating around to all the departments, making sure they’re in compliance.”

“Oh. Sure. That makes sense.”

Thank God. Kate decided to change the subject. “It was really nice of that guy to hold the door for us this morning.”

“Yeah, he gets here around the same time every day.”

Ah, so the girl hadn’t been waiting for Kate to buzz them in after all. She’d been waiting for him. “And do you always have your hands full?”

She blushed. “Always. My coworkers think I like them so much I’m willing to bring them coffee every day.” She lowered her voice. “I don’t, really.”

Kate smiled. The girl reminded her of her future sister-in-law, Kristin. They had the same spunk. “Do you have plans for lunch?”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t.”

“I don’t know anyone here, and it’s boring eating alone. Would you like to go with me?”

“Sure. Meet me in the cafeteria at noon.”



Back in the conference room, Kate informed Ian she was meeting someone for lunch. “At first I was worried. She was kind of staring at me with this eerie laser focus, like she was trying to see into my brain. I thought I was going to have to befriend her just to deflect suspicion. But then I learned she has a massive crush on a guy who works here, and frankly she needs help moving things forward.”

“See, I knew you’d make friends.” He took off his glasses and pushed his chair back from the table. “Are you up for something a bit more challenging? I can do it myself if you don’t feel comfortable, but you’ll be more inconspicuous because they won’t be expecting a woman to do it.”

“Are you kidding me? Of course I want to do it.” Kate leaned toward him, eager. “What is it?”

“I need you to install this on the systems administrator’s computer.” He held up a small, cylinder-shaped module with a round opening on each end. “It’s a keylogger.”

He handed it to her and she studied it.

“What does it do?”

“It records all his keystrokes so I’ll know whether he has any suspicion that someone is accessing the network. You’ll have to pull the cable that runs from the keyboard to the computer, plug this in, and reconnect the cable.”

“I can do that.”

“I found an online database that lists the physical location for every employee. He’s in the northwest corner, second row over. His name is Nathan Robertson and his cube is slightly bigger than the others. There should be a nameplate on the exterior wall.”

Kate took a deep breath. “You always know just how to get my adrenaline pumping, don’t you? I may need an extra glass of wine tonight.”

“I thought you might. I restocked the wine fridge yesterday.”