White-Hot Hack (Kate and Ian #2)(36)

That was strange. He should have received it by now. She scanned her text log. Why was Chad’s name showing up? Her heart began to pound as she checked her last message and saw Chad’s name.

Kate: OMG!!! I accidentally sent that last text to my brother.

Ian: What did it say?

Kate: I’ll resend it. Hopefully to you and not any other member of my family this time.

Ian: Like Steve, your astronaut boyfriend/dad?

Kate: SHUT UP I WOULD DIE. And I’m trying to erase the dad/boyfriend thing from my memory, so please don’t mention it ever again.

She resent the text and he responded ten seconds later.

Ian: I predict it’s going to be very difficult for Chad to accept that his little sister has a freaky side. And it’s all I can do to keep myself from marching you right into that conference room and making this a reality. But I’m a professional who rarely mixes business with pleasure, so I will restrain myself.

Kate: That’s a first.

Ian: I know. It’s killing me.

Chad: Jesus! Pretty sure that wasn’t for me. Really wish I could unsee it.

Kristin: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Chad just forwarded the best text message EVER. dying



“Uh, this is my desk.” The employee sounded utterly dumbfounded to find Kate sitting in his chair.

Kate looked up from her phone. “Oh, hey. Sorry. I felt like playing solitaire and my desk is, you know, clear on another floor. You need to change your password because it only took me three tries to figure it out. Feel free to finish my game.”

She dashed off before he could ask any questions and took the stairs to the fourth floor. She’d brought a small notebook with her, and she made her way up and down the rows asking employees for their passwords. Each time, she gave them the same spiel: I’m working on a project with Legal. I need your user name and password. Most of them gave it to her without a single protest, but a few of them refused.

“Excellent,” she told them. “You shouldn’t give that information to anyone.”

She received another text from Ian.

Ian: The IT department is having something called food day tomorrow. They passed around a sign-up sheet. I said I’d bring cheese dip.

Kate: Of course you did.

Ian: If we have to come back tomorrow for another crack at the server room, can you please make some? I told everyone I was world famous for it. I can’t believe how excited they got.

Kate: You’re killing me.

Ian: Does that mean yes?

Kate: Yes, I will make you some cheese dip.

Ian: Best wife ever.



After the meeting, as his employees filed out the door, the IT manager walked up to Ian and said, “Excuse me. Who are you?”

Ian stuck out his hand and they shook. “Todd Smith. Help desk administrator.”

“Who hired you?”

“I had a phone interview and then HR asked me to come in for a face-to-face with one of the supervisors. I forget his name, but he was just in this meeting. I got the job offer two days later.” Watching the manager rack his brain as he tried to recollect any of this amused Ian immensely.

“Yeah, okay. Sorry. Didn’t know they’d already set a start date for you. Welcome aboard.”

“No problem. It’s great to be here. I can’t believe how much I’ve already learned.”



Kate and Ian ate lunch together in the cafeteria, and she smiled when she noticed Ashley and Tristan talking animatedly at a table for two.

Ian unwrapped his sandwich. “This afternoon we’ll be collecting more user names and passwords. I’d like to take a look at the copy rooms on each floor. The recycling and shredding bins should be located there and clearly marked, and I want to see if the employees are disposing of documents the way they should.”

“What if someone suspects what we’re doing?”

“If it looks like one of us has gotten cornered by someone who’s figured out what we’re really up to, the other can confirm it by casually asking, ‘How’s it going?’ If the answer is ‘Great,’ then there’s nothing to worry about. If the answer is, ‘Couldn’t be better,’ shit’s about to hit the fan and you should calmly—but very quickly—head for the door.”

“I can’t just leave you behind.”

“I’m not exactly bleeding out on a battlefield. Besides,” he said, taking a drink of his Coke, “I’m not going to get caught.”

“Neither am I,” she said, bouncing her leg as the adrenaline began to flow. She felt like a sprinter poised in the starting blocks, waiting for the gun to go off.

He laid his hand on her leg for just a moment. “Easy there, grasshopper.”

“I can’t. I feel like Spy Girl. Tell me again why you don’t like doing this?”

“Because it’s not remotely as fun when your wife’s not with you.”



In the first-floor copy room, Kate snapped several pictures of the sensitive documents an employee tossed into the trash instead of the shredder.

Ian sent an employee into a full-blown panic attack after sitting down at a computer, cracking the password on the first try, and, upon the young man’s sudden return, saying to him, “I’m not going to find any porn on this, am I?”

Between them, they collected the badges of seven employees who’d left them on their desks where anyone could swipe them, and Kate took photos of the proprietary information people left in full view on their monitors after they walked away without locking down their computers.