Dangerous Illusions (Steel Hawk Book 3)

by Sarah Ballance

  Then she remembered someone else already had.

  She looked at her notes for the type of scanners they used at Steel Hawk, and upon searching online found out there were any number of ways they could be fooled. Most would require cooperation on behalf of the fingerprint’s owner, but there were a couple anyone could pull off—even on a whim. Next time she found him out of his office, she’d give it a try. If she succeeded, he’d probably lose his mind, but there was something incredibly attractive about that man when he was about to boil over. She’d felt that, the moment they met, and the daredevil in her was ready to experience it all over again.

  Confident she’d finally accomplished something that morning, she shut down her computer and got her things together to leave the hotel. She’d told Edward she’d meet him after lunch. It wasn’t yet one o’clock, so Sophie made a last-minute decision to stop at the café across from Steel Hawk. The place was packed. After a long wait for a sandwich, she found a table at the back. Almost as soon as she sat, she looked up to see Willie Bishop walk in. Sophie hadn’t met him personally, but she’d seen plenty of him while doing her research that morning.

  If he was guilty of wrongdoing, it didn’t seem to be on his mind. Clearly a regular, he lingered at a number of tables, exchanging greetings and the occasional loud bout of laugher with half the people in the café. He smiled easily, no trace of the discomfort one would expect from a man neck deep in corporate espionage.

  After about ten minutes, he left. The only illegal activity in which he seemed mired was that of jaywalking back to Steel Hawk.

  But that didn’t mean he was off the hook.

  Sophie sat back and took a bite of her sandwich, studying the clientele as she ate. Most were dressed professionally or in business casual.

  Only one was devastatingly handsome.

  Sophie nearly inhaled her pickle when Edward walked in, wearing a light gray suit that made him look like some kind of god. He was carrying a stack of papers, which struck her as unusual—she’d seen him with a briefcase a few times, but never with loose papers. He hadn’t seen her, so she took advantage of the opportunity to observe from a distance, free from the influence of that penetrating stare. A person would never know to look at him that he’d been up half the night, leaving Sophie to silently curse the bags she carried under her eyes. Her usual light dusting of SPF foundation hadn’t touched them that morning.

  Edward moved easily through the crowd—in fact, people seemed to scatter from him—and made quick appraisal of the patrons seated near the front of the store. His eyes lingered briefly on a dark-haired woman who never looked up from her laptop. Curious, Sophie tried uselessly to make herself smaller in hopes he wouldn’t see her, but the effort was as unnecessary as it was futile. He quickly turned his attention to the cashier and placed an order, for which a minute later he swiped his card and was handed a paper bag.

  Edward turned from the counter and reached into his bag, removing a napkin. Sophie watched, perplexed, as he walked toward the dark-haired woman. He paused at the trash can near her table and threw away the clean napkin, then turned and proceeded to drop the stack of papers he’d brought in with him.

  Most people had the decency to look aggravated when a whole sheaf of papers scattered. Edward, who was apparently known far and wide for being pissed at the world, didn’t even blink when the pages hit the floor. In fact, he seemed more intensely focused on the dark-haired woman who then leaned over to help him gather the mess. She didn’t actually look in his direction, Sophie noticed, but the woman did manage to pilfer a couple of the pages when Edward turned to grab a couple of sheets that had strayed in the opposite direction. She held the pages behind her, away from Edward.

  But Sophie had a clear view.

  She quickly used her cell phone camera to take a picture of the documents. She had time to take a second one at a hundred percent zoom before the woman managed to slip the pages into her bag, which sat between her chair and the wall. From the angle of the woman’s head, she couldn’t have made more than a split second’s worth of eye contact with Edward, not that it mattered.

  Edward spoke a brief syllable—probably thanks—then turned and left the café. He, Sophie noted, walked the extra distance to the crosswalk rather than going straight across as had Willie. Straight and narrow to a T, but was that Edward, or just the man he wanted everyone to think he was?

  She didn’t like how much she feared it was the latter.

  * * * * *

  Monique took a long drink of her lukewarm coffee, hoping it would negate the chill that had infiltrated her. It didn’t work. Watching Edward Long walk away only deepened the ice that threatened to overtake her.

  The girl to whom Rufus had referred was in the back of the café. Monique couldn’t very well turn around to stare, but she knew the table at which the woman sat. She didn’t have a reason to pay attention to Monique, but she must have followed Edward’s every move in the café. He had that way about him—he demanded attention. Unlike Rufus, Edward didn’t expect respect, he commanded it. She’d never appreciated the difference until she’d experienced firsthand Edward’s gravitational pull. She didn’t want him—she couldn’t—but he was impossible to ignore. He exuded confidence—the kind that made Rufus seem desperate somehow. Grasping.

  She feared the consequences if Rufus ever learned she entertained thoughts of Edward, and God help her if he ever learned she compared the two of them. It wouldn’t matter to him that the thoughts weren’t sexual, but by that same stroke of reasoning, it wouldn’t matter if they were. Rufus would punish her either way, but it was his choice to send her to San Francisco. And after they’d reunited in Zarrenburg, it was his choice to send her back to the States. His choice to leave her there. Somehow she doubted Rufus tolerated the loneliness as he expected her to do, and the thought of him taking another woman into his bed left her ill.

  Monique stared blankly at her computer screen, not seeing the pointless card game that she’d played a thousand times over the past few weeks. Her fingers itched to retrieve the papers she’d stuffed in her bag. She hadn’t a clue what would be on them. She knew only that the woman, in all likelihood, had watched Monique take them.

  Rufus would be angry. The move hadn’t been part of the plan, but it had accomplished something of utmost importance—something neither she nor Rufus could have predicted coming from a chance encounter in the little café.

  It had made Edward look guilty.

  Chapter Six

  It was nearly two o’clock when Edward rushed from the conference room to find Sophie sitting in his office, grinning like the cat that ate the canary.

  He stopped short. Not because she was so damn beautiful, and not because her hand in his had felt more natural and intimate than any sexual experience he’d had in his life. Certainly not because he’d thought of little else since.

  But because she was in his office—the one he’d left locked and which required his fingerprint or his key to open—and that wasn’t possible. “How did you get in here?”

  She held up her thumb like it was any kind of answer.

  “Ms. Garza—”

  “Sophie.”

  He ignored her correction, though with her smug tone, he was surprised she wasn’t kicked back with her feet on his desk and cigar—Cuban, of course—in her hand. Clearly she was enjoying her moment. Good for her—he wanted answers. “How the hell did you get in my office?”

  She leaned her head against his chair. Her hair fell like silk against the leather. “I understand from my brief orientation yesterday with the receptionist that there’s a record of who goes where and when?”

  “There is.” He had to fight to keep his voice even.

  “And do you happen to have access to it?”

  “Yes,” he said tightly, not the least bit amused by whatever it was that had her smiling at him—and even less so by the way that smile made him feel.

  “Then by all means, take a look.”

  She p
ushed back from the desk, making room for him. But not enough. Getting to his computer required his legs to brush against hers, and when he knelt to see the screen, her scent enveloped him. He gritted his teeth and pulled up his log-in screen. Realizing she could see every word he typed, he glanced at her.

  She grinned and covered her eyes.

  That should have been his cue to input his password, but instead he took advantage of the opportunity to stare at her lips. They were a perfect, natural shade of pink. He wondered if they were as moist as they looked. Or as soft.

  “Can I come out now?”

  Considering that he hadn’t hit a single key—something of which she was undoubtedly aware—the question irritated him. “Almost,” he grumbled.

  He put himself as best he could between her and the computer and logged in, then pulled up a second password screen for entry into the Steel Hawk database. After a quick glance to make sure he didn’t see green eyes peering through fingertips, he inputted the second password and hit Enter.

  “You can look now,” he said, easing to the side so there was some blessed distance between them.

  She dropped her hands, still looking mighty damn pleased with herself. “How many people have access to this database?”

  “Adam. Max. Otherwise, two programmers and the receptionist. And me, of course.”

  “Can anyone alter the records?”

  “As far as I know, they can’t. Even if someone could, I assume they’d have to act quickly. The system backs itself up periodically throughout the day. There’s a list of read-only files in the system—one for each day.”

  “How long do the files remain in the system?”

  “Indefinitely. It’s just a database—it doesn’t take up much space.” His gaze slid over her, firing all his cylinders. For heaven’s sake, the woman had broken into his office. He was the wrong kind of hot and bothered for the situation, which only made him hotter. And more bothered. “Back to my original question… How did you get in here?”

  “Take a look at the log. You tell me.” That damned grin again.

  “And what, pray tell, is so amusing?”

  “Because when you find out what I did, you’re going to lose your shit.”

  Her smile left him wanting to taste her. “I’m glad you find it funny. Because however you got in here was a clear breach of our security procedures, and frankly, there’s been a little too much of that going around lately.”

  “Look at it this way. Between the possibility of a camera in here and the reality of what I’ve just done, the list of possible suspects has officially expanded.”

  “Jesus. I almost forgot about the camera.” His knees were killing him from kneeling in front of the desk. While waiting for the page to load, he stood and stretched, bending his back with the effort so the direction of his gaze fell naturally to the ceiling. The speckled, pitted dropped tile made looking for a tiny camera a task of the needle-and-haystack variety. “I still don’t see anything. Yet.”

  “We’ll run a sweep. If there’s one in here, we’ll find it. Is this your page?”

  He redirected his attention to the data on the screen. “That’s the one.”

  Sophie vacated his chair. “Have at it.”

  As soon as he sat, she was at his side. Fortunately, he was a little too interested in what he’d find in that database to be distracted by the vanilla haze that clung to her like sin. Or maybe not. He inhaled, memorizing the scent. Feasting on it.

  Then his eyes caught the impossible.

  According to the records, he’d entered his own office at one thirty that afternoon. But he hadn’t. He’d been in the conference room from a quarter after one until the moment he’d seen Sophie at his desk. “This isn’t possible.”

  She said nothing. Somehow, that made him more frantic.

  The database tracked hundreds of data points for each of Steel Hawk’s dozens of employees on a daily basis. For the most part, the times recorded were entry points, as for purposes of safety the doors weren’t locked from the inside. Only the more secure areas, such as Adam’s basement lab, required a thumbprint for exit. If someone failed to provide one, the door would still open, but the time was logged and the security camera automatically filed a still shot of the person in question. It should have been foolproof.

  Obviously it wasn’t. Considering Edward had somehow entered a room he hadn’t been anywhere near, he’d just become a proponent of extending that security to all doorway transactions.

  The database had already incurred hundreds of entries that day. Edward clicked his own name, narrowing the visible data to his movements throughout the building.

  “You’re an early riser,” Sophie observed. “At the office by seven? Did you even go home last night?”

  “Long enough for a ten-minute shower,” he muttered. One he’d spent hard as a rock, thinking about her. The woman had gotten past more than one locked door—not just his office, but one dangerously close to the part of him he kept closed off. He couldn’t think of the last time he actually cared what someone thought of him—at least beyond the fact he did his job right and he did it well—but he found he wanted her to like him. And that made him feel like a teenager, which frankly pissed him off a little. Almost as much as her not telling him how she got into his office. “This doesn’t make sense. Clearly you got in here by pretending to be me, but how?”

  She stood. “Watch.”

  He did, flabbergasted, while she walked out, shut his door, then scanned her thumbprint. A quiet click followed, and she entered. He hoped she’d stick to her side of the room, but she didn’t stop until she was well into his personal space. And he liked it. “What does the log say?” she asked.

  He refreshed the page and found himself staring at the impossible. He blinked, but the words were still there. “Edward Long.”

  “Meet your stunt double.” She held up her thumb. On closer inspection, he realized she had a piece of flesh-toned tape stuck over the pad. On it, a fingerprint he presumed matched his.

  Fucking hell. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “Sadly, no. Fingerprint scanners are notoriously easy to fool, and this is a fairly standard system as far as they go. You sat right next to me and didn’t realize I had this tape on my thumb, and most people would probably assume it was a Band-Aid. Needless to say, it wouldn’t register to most unless they were looking for it, and as far as gaining access to your office, to the casual observer, it would look like I’d done exactly what I’m supposed to do. The only glitch would be if someone saw whoever did this and questioned why they’d be allowed entry, but unless you have full-time guards watching the feeds, that’s unlikely to happen.”

  The weight on Edward’s shoulders grew heavier by the second. “I think it’s past time we hire some. Does Adam know about this?”

  “Not yet. But he will.”

  “Damn right he will. This is embarrassing.” And that was an understatement. This was no glitch. It was a huge, gaping hole for a top security firm, even if it wasn’t directly related to their products.

  “Don’t be too hard on yourself. It’s not like you’ve got giant stores of uranium underground—you’re just keeping tabs on movement through the building. Frankly, a system like this does tend to keep some folks on the straight and narrow.” She detached his thumbprint and handed it to him. “The problem with the technology is it creates a false sense of security. People believe what they see. The worst part about a system like this is when someone can get around it, they become invisible.”

  “I see that. First the possibility of a camera, and now this. I don’t know if I should choke you or kiss you.”

  Her eyes widened, and she treated him to a playful, disarming smile. “Just don’t do both,” she said. “I’m not into that stuff.”

  He gritted his teeth at the innuendo. “Do you want to tell me how you got my fingerprint?”

  “From the front desk. Carte blanche, remember?” She smiled sweetly, then, much to his relie
f, walked across the office and settled in the chair opposite his desk. “I printed it on high resolution onto a piece of tape, positioned it on my thumb, and I was in. All with stuff I found around here. I don’t know how readily anyone else could access those records, but with a little forethought, almost anyone could create a passable print.”

  He felt a headache coming on. “Care to tell me how?”

  “Every surface in this place gleams. Anywhere you touch—from a glass wall to the table in the boardroom—would hold an excellent likeness. As often as things are polished around here, it would more than likely not be one cluttered with the remnants of the prints before it. Under those circumstances, anyone with a half ounce of patience could lift one the way the police do. A little dust and a good taping technique, and you’re in.”

  “Jesus.”

  “And every piece of paper you touch offers another opportunity—one that could be pursued anywhere paper can travel.”

  “Adam is going to have a fit. What if someone accessed his lab?”

  “If it helps, I think that’s unlikely. In fact, with all the cameras around here, it would be a huge risk on the part of whoever is doing this.” She paused and grinned wickedly. “It’s possible, however, that someone used this method to access your office for the purpose of planting a camera.”

  “And that could have been any time.” Despite the plethora of bad news, some of his long-held tension eased. He’d known he wasn’t guilty, but couldn’t begin to explain much of what had happened. Now, thanks to Sophie, he had the beginnings of answers.

  She shrugged. “You’d know better than I would, but with all the data Steel Hawk collects on a minute-by-minute basis, the task to narrow it down would be overwhelming, and the person who did this probably knows that. This could have happened weeks or months ago.”

  He cast another hopefully subtle look around the room, still seeing nothing. “It had to have. The specifications for the technology in the display case built for the royal jewels came through weeks ago. We might be able to chalk up the lost contracts to the cost of doing business, but the theft of the Pasha Star was no coincidence. Someone had full knowledge of how that display case worked.”