In Too Deep: A Romantic Suspense Novel

by Landish, Lauren

  "I swear," I finally told her once I had my glider stashed and my small satchel ready, "when I get home I'm going to make you pay for all this teasing."

  "I look forward to it," Sophie replied. "But on to business, your target is five floors down. How're you planning on getting access?"

  "Elevator shaft," I replied, pulling up a building schematic on the small tablet I had with me. I knew Sophie could see what I saw on her computer, which was hot-linked to my tablet. It allowed her to also send me data updates as well if she wanted to. "Just making my way down the stairs would be too big a chance of triggering some sort of alarm or getting caught by a patrol. And that whole rappel over the side and slide down a rope act may work in the movies, but I don't put a lot of faith in it myself. Nor do I plan on trying to cut holes in reinforced glass."

  I went over to the elevator shaft, which hulked out of the top of the building. It's one of the classic challenges of an elevator system, namely, where do you put the motors and the cable? The easiest is to have them both stick out the top of your building in a miniature room. The bigger the building, and the bigger the elevator, the bigger a room you need. I found the elevator I wanted, which according to the schematics was marked as an executive elevator. I wanted that one because I didn't need anyone suddenly interrupting me while I was trying to work.

  The cable descender I used is another one of the toys that I have come to enjoy about my new crusade against crime in the city. Made of a special type of braided nylon and Kevlar blend, it could support a full one thousand pounds while being flexible enough and small enough to wind onto a reel roughly the size of my hand. Really, more space was taken up by the ascender and descender mechanisms than by the filament itself. I used a carabiner to lock it onto the overhead beam of the shaft, then made my descent. It was easier than you'd think, I just had to hang and let my harness support me. Pretty soon I was five floors down, right where I wanted to be. Looking down the shaft, I double checked that I was still safe before jimmying the doors open.

  It was strange, really. The place I was breaking into was one of the main computer centers for the Confederation, so security should have been tighter than Fort Knox. Instead, they went with hiding through deception, and made it no more noticeable than any other mainframe center in the city, just another one of thousands. If anything, I had expected that the elevator shaft doors themselves should have been rigged with an alarm. Instead, I was soon making my way down the corridor to the mainframe room, where I quickly picked the lock and went inside.

  I had to expect that I'd tripped something by that point, so I didn't have a lot of time. Instead of trying to go databank by databank, I pulled out my little secret weapon; the cracker computer that I used for this sort of work. Not much bigger than an old Sony Walkman, it was packed with enough power and an adaptable AI that I could hack my way into almost any system within seconds. But I just needed data, so I slipped my cracker computer into the data port on the nearest mainframe and let it go to work.

  The cracker program was able to get to the level of reading file folder names quickly, and then flash copied them to a custom made three terabyte USB flash stick. In less than a minute, it beeped, indicating that the job was done. I tapped in one more little program, uploading a file that buried itself quickly into a backup server. Easily traced, but that was what I wanted. I wanted the owners of the databases to know who had been there.

  I made my way out to the elevator just as the radio in my ear buzzed again. "Hey, my systems are saying that you're going to get company," Sophie said. She had tied into the building's security system through their armed guard company, which was a private corporation with an office off-site, but not too great of a cyber security setup. "How far are you from extraction?"

  "Twenty feet from the elevator, and then the roof," I replied. "You're going to drop off in the elevator shaft again. Too much metal and stuff in the way."

  "All right. They're taking the freight elevator up, so you should have time. Maybe thirty seconds."

  I hummed my understanding and got back to the elevator, where the doors had been left shimmed open. I clicked into my filament and carefully swung into the shaft. The scariest part was when I tapped the shim holding the shaft doors open with my foot, and the thin piece of wood went tumbling down the shaft. It was a long, long time before I heard it hit something below, hopefully shattering into a dozen pieces. Either way, I hadn't touched the wood with bare hands, only gloved.

  Hitting the retract button on my belt, the powerful coiled springs whisked me up the shaft, stopping with my head six inches below the metal beam I had anchored to. I could hear the deafening roar of the freight elevator in the shaft next to me, and the rapidly approaching lights on top of the car. They had picked the right elevator, the rapid freight car would get them up faster than anything else. They just hadn't anticipated me.

  I pulled myself back over and out onto the roof, finding my folded up miniature glider. I stepped off, letting my speed gather before pulling back and swooping off into the night, and I headed to my planned extraction point, a large self-storage company three miles away that happened to have five shipping container sized units rented out to me. "I'm away and safe," I told Sophie. "I'll be home before midnight."

  "Good, I'll have our bath waiting for us," Sophie replied into my ear. "So did you get the little package in there?"

  "Yeah, they're going to love that," I chuckled. The package was technically a virus, although all it did was change all of the system sounds of any Windows unit that downloaded it to Do You Wanna Build A Snowman? Sophie and I were having fun poking our targets.

  Tonight's raid had been the data collection center for one of the biggest rackets run by the Confederation in the city. While insurance fraud had been one of their most profitable scams for years, recently the Confederation was getting pressure from Owen Lynch, who was using his political connections to revamp the state's insurance laws, limiting payouts. To counteract this, the Confederation was going back to an old stand-by, one that had been in use since the Roman Empire days, padding work claims and then short shifting the system. With hundreds of public works contracts, especially in the construction industry, they could easily say they sent eight people and only send seven. That doesn't sound like a lot, but when every crew was ten to twelve percent understaffed, it totaled millions of dollars a year.

  I had downloaded all of their contracts, hoping to track down who was legit and who was a scam. And of course, left my little calling card. "Remind me again when I get back," I said as I approached the self-storage site, "I've got to do some musical research."

  "Oh, what for?" Sophie asked. She could keep her headset in even as she moved around the house, and normally did whenever we were separated like this.

  "I've got to find something more bad-ass than a song from a Disney movie as my calling card. Isn't there any heavy metal or something that uses the word snow?"

  "I think the Red Hot Chili Peppers did something," Sophie said. "And of course, you could always use songs by the Canadian reggae guy, Snow."

  "Ah hell no," I groaned. "I'd rather stick with Disney songs at that point."

  "Well, get home quickly," Sophie said. "I've got the bath ready for you, with all your favorite oils and herbs on standby. And of course, two hands that are more than ready to give you a massage."

  "I'll be there as soon as I can. I love you."

  "I love you too."

  Chapter 33

  Tabby

  I was kind of nervous as I waited outside my apartment for Scott to arrive. I was wearing one of my more polite first date outfits, a knee length decorated denim skirt and a white Bohemian-style top. It wasn't quite a poet blouse, but I couldn't call it a peasant blouse either. Either way, I liked it, and had worn it for years.

  Scott was three minutes early by my watch, or as my Daddy used to say, right on time. He pulled up not in the pickup truck I'd expected, but a Buick Verano. I was surprised, I hadn't taken Scott for being
a Buick type of guy.

  "Hi," he said, getting out. At least he was wearing what I'd expected, black denim jeans and a khaki shirt with a green nylon flight jacket. He wasn't quite GQ, but he wasn't straight country either. Instead, he was somewhere in between, and he was handsome as hell doing it. "You look amazing."

  "Thank you," I replied, giving him a little curtsey with my skirt. "And may I say, you look quite dashing as well. Is that jacket real?"

  "If you mean is it really a military jacket, yes it is," Scott replied. "I had to laugh when I heard designers were coming out with six and seven hundred dollar imitation flight jackets when I was able to go down to an Army-Navy surplus store and get the real deal for under a hundred and fifty bucks. You like it?"

  "It looks authentic on you," I replied honestly. "No froo-froo crap for you."

  "Thanks," Scott replied. He led me around to the passenger side door of his Buick and held the door open for me like a real gentleman. "So what does it mean that I'm driving a Buick then?"

  I waited for him to come around and sit down in the driver's seat. "It means you're looking for luxury, but are also smart enough to not over extend yourself by signing a lease for a BMW or Audi or some other sixty thousand dollar car," I replied. "I call that smart in my book."

  Scott grinned at me, and turned over the engine. "Thanks. Now, how about some Italian?"

  "Drive on, oh brave sir!" I said, both of us snickering at the jokes. It didn't take us long to drive to Mar De Napoli, and I had to admit, it was a cute little place. Near the Northside where the docks gave way to the beaches and the high-end houses of the Heights, it was built to look like a Mediterranean Villa, complete with white walls and blue accents. The smells coming from the pizza oven drifted deep into the parking lot, and I knew immediately what I wanted.

  "Yeah, it's that good," Scott said, reading my expression. "Come on, we've got a table already reserved."

  The atmosphere inside was quiet, mostly due to the design of the tables. The restaurant had done a masterful job of sound baffling, so that instead of echoing ceilings and sound drifting all over the restaurant, conversations were muted and you didn't feel like you were yelling over everyone else. The lights weren't exactly dim, but they weren't glaring either. Maybe the best you could describe it would be cozy. "So how'd you find this place?" I asked Scott after we had been seated.

  "We do the HVAC for the restaurant," Scott said simply. "I wish that would score me some free food like we get from the chocolatiers near the Gaslight District, but I guess I'll just have to be content with the pizza instead. I'm just glad it wasn't the calzone."

  "Oh, what's up with the calzone? Is it terrible?" I asked, curiously munching on a delicious oregano and parmesan breadstick.

  Scott shook his head. "No, exactly the opposite. But, a pizza is big, it's open, it's supposed to be shared. A pizza is for a date. A calzone is closed up, it's by itself. It's the meal I order when I get stood up or I break up with someone. Trust me, I'm happy to be ordering a pizza tonight."

  I was touched by his thinking, even if it was a bit weird. "As long as you don't like anchovies, I think I'm happy about it too."

  "I promise, no anchovies. Hey, can I ask you a question?"

  "Of course. Isn't that what dates are for, getting to know someone else," I said, taking a sip of my ice water. "And it's a lot more fun than just filling out a paper questionnaire."

  "That is true," Scott told me, "then I know you'd turn me down due to my horrendous handwriting. I'm the sort of man that keyboards were invented for. But anyway, what led you to the financial services industry? You told me your family had car dealerships, and I understand not wanting to go into that if you don't want to, but why finances?"

  "A couple of reasons," I said, my answer interrupted as the waitress brought our pizza. It was too hot to cut up yet, so we let it cool, the smell of the cheese and Italian sausage tantalizing us as I tried to finish my answer. "First, because I've always been good with numbers, but not so good I wanted to become an engineer or something like that. But second and more importantly, while I was in on the wrench side of things with my parents, I always loved the business side of it more. So when it came time for me to go to college, I knew I was going to go for business, and get at least my MBA. After that though, I just wanted to stand on my own two feet, and my current job allows me to do that.”

  "So how'd you get so lucky as to start working the Smiley contracts? I figured a high roller like him would be getting the VIP treatment from some higher ups or something," Scott said, dishing out the first slice of pizza onto a plate. He passed it over to me, then got a slice for himself, sprinkling extra Parmesan cheese and chili flakes over top. His taste in pizza was another thing to like about him, in my opinion.

  "It was luck, actually," I said, falling into the story that Sophie, Mark and I had put together. "When I started with my current job, one of the things that every newbie is handed is a pile of dead weight files. These are ones that, if they pan out, gets you a nice bonus check, but nobody expects them to pan out. Estates that have been caught up in litigation for years, decades-long overseas claims, stuff like that. I happen to have been handed Mount Zion."

  "Where the Smileys live," Scott said, doing the mental math. "So when they came to the firm, you met them."

  "Something like that. Actually, Marcus' corporation bought the property before they ever arrived in town. However, our firm did have some property records that the Smileys wanted personally, so I was invited over and got to meet them at Mount Zion. Sophie Warbird and I are the same age, and as we started discussing things, Marcus asked me a few questions about business. I guess what I said impressed them, because the next week,I got a message from my bosses that I was to be the manager for the Smileys for all of their purchases in the city."

  "So half luck, half your actual ability," Scott said, taking a bite of his pizza. "Don't sell yourself short."

  The rest of the date went wonderfully, and I was more and more impressed by Scott's charm. I've never been snobby about who I date, I didn't care that he was an HVAC repairman, but I also want to have the complete package for someone I'm dating.

  I want brains to go with looks if its going to be more than a one-night flirt session. Scott was checking all of the boxes. In addition to being cute, he was smart, in the sort of mix of street smarts and book smarts that told me he had taken what he'd learned in his HVAC license course, combined it with a high school education, and them swirled it all around with a few years of being out in the real world doing stuff. He had gaps in his knowledge, but admitted it, and not in that yeah I'm ignorant and proud of it way that a lot of insecure people get. He was just honest about it, while at the same time expressing a desire to learn more.

  By the time the last slice of pizza was gone, I knew that I wanted to see Scott again. I hadn't had such a great date in at least a year, and I was enjoying every moment. "I suppose you have work tomorrow," Scott said as we left the restaurant. "I kind of wish you didn't."

  "Oh, why's that?" I said as we walked through the parking lot. I entwined my arm with his, snuggling against him. "You think you'll get more than a shared pizza from me tonight?"

  Scott actually blushed, and I could feel my heart and body react to the bashful look he gave me. "No, but a guy can wish," he said. "Actually, I just really enjoyed this, and don't want it to end."

  "Neither do I," I said, "But yes, we both have work tomorrow. So, I had an idea that maybe could work for both of us."

  "What's that?" Scott asked, giving me a small smile.

  "Well, Friday and Saturdays are my social nights," I said. "I was thinking maybe you'd like to go out again tomorrow night? And if things go late tomorrow night, neither of us has our schedules too disturbed."

  Scott's smile was electric and bright, and I could see the happiness in his eyes. "I think I'd like that. In the meantime, let me take you home like a gentleman, and we can discuss details on the way."

  The drive home didn
't take as long as finding Mar De Napoli, and by the time we'd gotten to my place we had barely set a time for when to pick me up the next night. I knew what I wanted though. After watching him work physically on the air conditioner, I'd seen his muscles at work, now I wanted to see him in a more sensual activity. "You're serious?" Scott said when I told him my plan. "A dance club?"

  "Sure am. What, you don't want to see me in a short skirt?" I teased, crossing and uncrossing my legs for him.

  Scott laughed and shook his head. "No, I just am a bit nervous of looking like a goofball trying to be coordinated on the floor. Promise to take it easy on me?"

  "We'll see," I told him. We were soon at my apartment, and Scott stopped his car. "Thank you for a lovely dinner, Scott."

  "Can I walk you to your door?" he asked. "I promise, just to the door."

  "I'd like that," I said, and waited for him to come around and let me out. I could feel the pleasant tension as he led me to my door, something I hadn't felt in a long time from any date.

  "I had a great time too," Scott said when we reached my door. "And I'm looking forward to tomorrow."

  He leaned forward naturally, and our lips met. It was a good kiss, strong enough that I could appreciate his strength without being too forward. I let the kiss linger for a good amount of time before pulling back, smiling. "I'm looking forward to it too. Good night, Scott."

  Chapter 34

  Sophie

  I was true to my word, waiting for Mark when he got back from his mission with my hair twisted into a thick cable braid and then laid over my left shoulder. Other than that, I wasn't wearing a thing when he came into the master bath suite of Mount Zion. Instead, I was sitting in the deep central tub, which was filled with milky colored water that covered me almost all the way to my chin. The tops of my breasts broke the surface of the water, but that was it. "My brave warrior returns."

  Mark shrugged off his jacket and watched me as I slid through the water until I was on the other edge, facing him. I could feel my butt sticking out of the water, and knew I was enticing him. "I'm glad to see that you worried about my safety," he teased, pulling off his t-shirt. "What if I had gotten shot down or something?"