Hunted

by Beverly Long

It wasn’t.

  “How much gas do we have?”

  “A little less than half a tank. We’ll just have to watch it closely.”

  It was one more thing in a list of things to worry about. But for right now, they were back on the road. She needed to focus on the positive. And maybe reflect on the amazing. Dear Diary, this afternoon I had sex with Ethan Moore.

  The small book with its feeble little lock would have spontaneously combusted!

  Sort of like she’d done. Multiple times.

  And still it wasn’t enough. Maybe when she and Ethan got back to Denver and this mess was resolved, they—

  “Just one lane open,” Ethan said, interrupting her thoughts.

  Just as well, she rationalized. She had no business thinking about that right now. She needed to stay focused. “I hope we don’t meet anyone,” she said.

  Fortunately, they didn’t. And when they got to the interstate, a single lane on each side of the yellow line was open, with snow piled high on the side. It was as if they were driving through a tunnel.

  Five miles into their trip, they saw a car in the opposing lane. Chandler took it as a good sign. Surely traffic wouldn’t be coming from the other direction if the road was blocked.

  “What happens when we get to Denver?” Ethan asked.

  “I appreciate your positive attitude. Not if we get to Denver but rather, when.”

  “We’ll get there,” he said, his tone certain. “If it keeps going like this, maybe by midnight.”

  “I need to get inside the building.”

  “Tell me about Linder Automation.”

  “We’re located in a huge industrial park. We occupy the third and fourth floors of a six-story building. There’s a twenty-four-hour guard at the front desk and employees access their own work area with card swipes.”

  “What area of the building do you need to get into?”

  She thought about that. “Any area that has a computer. I just need to be able to sign on to our network so that I can look at some data that would be on one of our backup servers.”

  “What kind of data?”

  “I told you that I was confident that both Marcus White and my stepmother had viewed the twelve screens that contained the product specifications. There is an immense amount of data in these twelve different files. We’ve always felt pretty good about the security of the information because the files can’t be downloaded—there’s a code in the background that prevents that. But I remembered,” she said, shrugging a little, “too late, of course, that somebody could do an electronic screen print of the data.”

  “So let’s assume one of them did a screen print. How does that help you?”

  “It wouldn’t be just one screen print or even twelve screen prints. This is complex data, with formulas behind formulas. I don’t know for sure but I’ll bet they would have needed to do over a hundred screen prints to get all the data. And if they’re selling this data, I don’t think they’re selling it to someone who only wants part of the equation.”

  “I’m sure,” he said drily. “So you think they printed over a hundred screenshots and handed those over to the enemy?”

  “Yes. And I think those pieces of paper are long gone. But every time they pushed the button to do a screenshot, a temporary electronic file would have been generated. Now, both Marcus and my stepmother would know how to delete those temporary files. That’s pretty simple. But what I’m counting on is that neither one of them knows that we have a server that captures and indexes all temporary print files. I built it about two months ago.”

  “Why?”

  “One of my good friends at Linder is getting married. It’s been a whirlwind relationship but I’m not worried because her fiancé is a great guy. However, less than nine months ago, she was dating someone else who happens to also work at Linder. They broke up after she realized that he was sleeping with someone else while he was dating her.”

  “Given what you told me about Christivo, I imagine you’re sensitive to those kinds of situations.”

  “You think?” She smiled. “Anyway, about three months ago, he became her boss. She’s a wonderful employee but she thinks that he’s going to try to make it difficult for her to be successful. Not in any overt way, of course, just subtle stuff.”

  “Could happen. But still not getting how this goes with temporary print files being captured on a server.”

  “She works two jobs. So she needs to use her lunch hours to plan her wedding. She scours online bridal magazines, food magazines, et cetera. Whenever she sees something that she likes, she uses the print screen function, which creates the temporary electronic file, but she doesn’t actually print the page. She’s afraid to. They work in the same area and he might pick it up off the printer before she could get to it. If he saw something like that, he’d have a reason to have somebody from the IT staff look at her computer activity. If there was lots of wedding stuff, he could probably make the case that she’s using work time.”

  “Jerk,” Ethan said.

  “Exactly. Even though he was going out on her, he’s pretty jealous that she found someone and that they’re getting married so quickly. I told her not to worry about saving the pictures or emailing them to her personal email account, that I would set up a program where I captured all her print screen activity. Then when she’s ready, it would be a simple download.”

  “But you’re capturing everyone’s?”

  “Yes. I realized that when I saw how big the file was getting. It was on my list to fix but I had more important projects at work and just hadn’t gotten to it. The only harm was that it was using server space but we have plenty of that so I wasn’t too concerned.”

  “So you need to access this server and download whatever is on it. How long will that take?”

  “Not long once I’m in the building. Five to ten minutes, maybe.”

  “You said there was a guard 24/7 at the front door. Any other entrances?”

  “There are some side doors and a back door to the building, but none of them have card swipes. They’re mostly used as emergency exits. Everybody who works in that building has to come past the guard. We’re not the only government contractor there. Security is pretty tight. There’s a gate that everybody has to pass through. The security guard hits a button to raise a red entrance bar once he’s seen your badge.”

  “Then how do you propose to get in?”

  “I’ve been thinking about that. All the tenants in the building use the same cleaning company. I guess it’s part of the lease agreement. People come in at night and clean. They all have to have rigid background checks to be in the building, and the cleaning company guarantees that they are never there unsupervised.”

  “Still not getting it.”

  “They don’t exactly live up to their guarantee. The supervisors are there. But mostly hanging out in the office and hanging all over each other. There are two night supervisors, and they are both married to other people who probably have no idea that the missus and the mister are getting more than a paycheck at work. They sometimes don’t come out of the office for hours. I work at night a couple times a month because it’s the best time to do system maintenance. I know the routine. They stand in the hall when the workers arrive, hand out assignments and then disappear.”

  “So you intend to be part of the cleaning crew? Aren’t they going to be suspicious when you show up for work and they didn’t hire you?”

  “I don’t think they do the hiring. That all gets done out of some corporate office. I was there one night when a new person started. It was pretty clear they’d never met her before.”

  “It sounds as if it could work. But you said earlier that everybody needs a badge to get past the security guard.”

  “That’s the part I haven’t quite figured out.”

 
He was quiet for a minute and she waited for him to drill holes in her plan.

  “You’ll think of something,” he said finally, his voice soft, yet confident.

  And she fell a little bit more in love with Ethan Moore.

  * * *

  THEY HIT DENVER a little after midnight. The streets had been plowed and while it was piled high on the edges of the road, it was apparent that the city had not gotten as much snowfall as the mountains. The few cars that were out were moving around easily.

  “I guess going to my house is out of the question,” Chandler said, her voice heavy with regret.

  That wouldn’t be smart. It was anyone’s guess who might be watching the house. “Do you need something?”

  “Clean clothes.”

  “You still look good in those,” he said, smiling at her.

  She shook her head. “Turn at that next light. There’s a wannabe-Walmart drugstore about a mile up. They have a bunch of different things. I can get something there.”

  He found the store without any trouble. There were at least fifteen cars in the parking lot, proving that people really did shop at any time of the day or night. He pulled into a space, threw the truck into Park and pulled the keys. “What do you want me to get you?” he asked.

  She frowned at him. “I want to go in.”

  It could be dangerous. They were back in her hometown. “Where do you live from here?”

  “About twenty-five minutes east.”

  “Where is Linder Automation from here?”

  “Twenty minutes north.”

  “You don’t normally shop here?” he asked.

  “No. I’ve never been inside. There are stores much closer to my house. The guy who does my taxes lives about three blocks from here. That’s how I knew the store was here.”

  It wasn’t her neighborhood and it wasn’t near her work. Plus it was after midnight. The likelihood that she would see anyone she knew was very small.

  “Okay. But we make it fast.”

  “No problem. I just want to grab some yoga pants and a T-shirt. Something comfortable. And maybe an inexpensive pair of shoes. The ones I have on have had it.”

  He pulled out his wallet and handed her two one-hundred-dollar bills. “Will this cover it?”

  She held the bills between her index finger and her thumb, as if they were tainted. “I wish I didn’t have to keep taking your money.”

  “I don’t think you have a choice.”

  She shook her head. “I hate this.”

  “It will be over soon. Come on, let’s go.”

  They walked into the store. It was warm and brightly lit. There were two female clerks, each at a cash register, neither with customers, keeping themselves occupied by chatting. There was a young man on a machine that was quietly cleaning the tile floor.

  Chandler paused, read the suspended aisle signs and headed toward the rear of the store. He followed. It took her less than three minutes to select some black pants and two T-shirts, one black, one red. Then, with a quick look over her shoulder, she walked over to the lingerie aisles.

  And damn, in the middle of some stupid store, he got all hot and bothered as she ran her hands across a rack full of bras.

  He was toast.

  Knew it.

  And the back of his throat got tight when he found himself wondering what Mack and Baker McCann would have to say. Would they be happy? Would they think he was good enough for Chandler? Would they want to kick his ass for getting involved with her when he had his own problems to deal with?

  Chandler grabbed a matching bra and panty set. Light yellow. He’d always loved yellow.

  She led him over to the shoe department. He thought maybe she’d go for another pair of loafers, but she quickly settled on a pair of ankle boots with a solid half-inch heel. She sat down to try them on. They seemed to fit.

  She took them off, put them back in the box and smiled up at him. “These will work. See? I’m really a very fast shopper.”

  “Got to love a woman who knows what she wants.”

  She jerked her head down, breaking eye contact, so quickly that he was surprised she didn’t put her spine out of alignment. Then she got busy putting her loafers back on.

  Love a woman. It had been an off-the-cuff remark. Hadn’t it? His brain might be temporarily scrambled but that didn’t mean he was in love.

  She picked up her armload of purchases and started walking.

  She was going to let his comment go.

  He wasn’t sure if he was relieved or irritated that she didn’t want to talk about it. Didn’t women want to talk about everything? Analyze everything? Dissect? Pick?

  Great. He had to find the one who was just going to let it go, like water running off her back.

  On the way to the cash register, she made a detour into the electronics section. She picked up an eight-gigabyte flash drive. It was about the size of Ethan’s thumbnail. Then, the next aisle over, she scooped up a cell phone with a prepaid calling card that would last six hours.

  When they got to the cash register, both clerks had customers in line. Chandler stood behind a woman who appeared to be preparing for a paper shortage. She was buying multiples of paper towels, toilet paper, napkins and brown lunch bags.

  It took a minute for the clerk to get it all bagged up. Then Chandler stepped forward. It took just a minute to complete the transaction. As they walked out of the store, Chandler handed him the change.

  “Keep it,” he said.

  She didn’t say anything. Just stuffed the bills into her jeans pocket.

  Should he apologize for making her uncomfortable? Should he make a joke about it?

  He didn’t do either. Just got in his truck, petted Molly, who had been patiently waiting for them, and waited for Chandler to get her seat belt buckled.

  She immediately got busy taking the phone out of its plastic case. “Do you want to carry the phone or do you want me to?” she asked.

  “Keep it,” he repeated. He wanted her to have all the protection she could get. “Are you going to call Mack?”

  She shook her head. “Not yet. I hate that he’ll be worried but we’re so close now. When I have the proof, one way or the other, then I’ll call him. In an hour or two, we should know. I’ll have the evidence.”

  He pulled out of the lot and Chandler pointed toward the road that they’d come in on. “If you follow this road and turn left at the third light, we’ll be headed toward Linder Automation.”

  He did as instructed. Traffic was still light although there was a set of lights behind him. They drove in silence. The first light was red and he stopped. The only sound in the truck was Molly’s breathing.

  The second light was green and he breezed through. At the third light, he prepared to turn left. And noted that the car behind him made the same turn.

  “In about a mile, you’ll have to make another left-hand turn. The street is Chillicothe.”

  The street would have been a bustling business area during the day, but at one o’clock in the morning, there was very little activity. So where the hell was the driver behind him headed?

  It could have been a million places, but Ethan couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. And his gut had saved his life more than once in combat. He’d known just when to pull up or pull out of a flight pattern.

  “Hang on,” he said. He accelerated just slightly, putting some distance between his truck and the vehicle behind them. Then he made a quick right-hand turn onto a side street.

  “What?” Chandler squealed.

  The side street had been plowed but not as well as the main road. The pavement was still snow-covered. The back end of the truck slid and his tires grabbed.

  He wasn’t worried about that. He was watching the rearview mir
ror.

  The car behind him made the same turn.

  Out of a million possible places, what were the chances it was on this street?

  Not many.

  “I think we’ve got company.” He continued to drive. “Do you know where this street leads to?”

  “I’m not sure. Some of these side streets connect the two main roads that head north. I don’t know if this is one of them or if it’s a dead end somewhere up here.”

  He hoped not.

  She turned in her seat to look at the vehicle behind them. “Who is that? Is it the men who came to Dot’s?”

  Not unless they’d changed vehicles. This was a light-colored midsize car. He could tell that from the position of its lights and the glimpse he’d caught in the mirror as it had rounded the corner. He hadn’t been able to see who was driving or how many were in the car.

  He remembered what the woman from the gas station had said about the men buying oil. Had they known that their vehicle was in bad shape? Had they somehow switched it? “I don’t know,” he said. “It’s not an SUV.” The car had dropped back just a little. “I think we picked them up when we were leaving the store. Did you see anybody in there that you recognized?”

  “No. I would have said something.”

  Yeah, but they’d both been distracted because he’d decided to awkwardly profess his love in the shoe aisle. “I’m going to try to lose them,” he said. “I’d rather do that than force a confrontation right now.”

  “Good plan,” she said, her voice tight. She wrapped an arm around Molly, anchoring the dog next to her side.

  He picked up his speed. It was a residential street and there were cars parked on one side and snow piled up on the other, making the path through a narrow one. Five blocks in, there was a stop sign. He approached, looked both directions to make sure that there was nobody coming and blew through the intersection without stopping. When the vehicle behind him did the same and started to edge closer, he pressed the accelerator.

  They were traveling much too fast on the snow-covered street. Up ahead, he saw a traffic signal and assumed that was the main road. The light was green.