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ADAM
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I WOKE UP AND GRABBED for my phone immediately, with one of those reflexive moves that can only happen when you’ve subconsciously been thinking about something all night.
Then I had to blink about fifty times to try to get my eyes to work correctly so I could focus on the phone itself.
I glanced at the time—6 in the morning—and then at my texts... to find that no, Katie hadn’t texted me the way I’d hoped she would. She hadn’t been home yet when I went to bed last night, and though that was to be expected—she had, after all, gone out with a friend—I’d dreamt all night that she didn’t make it home safely.
Hey, I wanted to check on her. There was nothing wrong with that.
I wondered how her night with Rachel had gone, and whether she’d gotten anything out of the other woman. Katie and Rachel had become friends the first day we were in the Houston office, so Katie definitely had a head start on that particular investigation. I knew she didn’t want Rachel to be the thief, but I also knew that if she could get through that investigation more quickly, and with a firmer conclusion, it would put us ahead.
If Rachel wasn’t the one stealing from the company, and Katie could prove it, then she’d be free to not only restore her faith in her friend but also move on to the other two current suspects.
Win, win, win.
At that moment, my phone buzzed in my hand, startling me so much that I nearly dropped it. Once I stopped bobbling the thing and got a chance to look at it, I saw that the woman in question had actually texted me.
Katie, I mean. Not Rachel. I didn’t even think that woman had my number.
Her text was brief.
Katie: Got home safe. Learned some interesting stuff. I’ll brief you once we’re in the office. Btw, Rachel thinks you’re hot for her and is planning to pursue the possibility. Good luck!
This last statement was followed by both hearts and laughing emojis, and I could see why. Of all the things we were supposed to do while we were in Houston, dating one of the employees of the Houston office—and one of our prime suspects—was about last on the list. I knew Rachel only by sight, and I could say right now that I wouldn’t be interested. The woman was... flighty. Too loud.
Not Katie.
I wasn’t interested, and was about to tell her so when another text came sliding in.
Katie: Think about it. You might be able to get even closer to her than I can. Not the worst thing.
Not the worst thing. Well, she was probably right about that. There were worse things than taking out a moderately attractive woman and trying to pick her brain for hints that she was stealing millions of dollars from the company she worked for.
That didn’t mean I had time for it. If I was going to spend time picking any woman’s brain while I was in Houston, it was going to be Katie’s. She’d just have to handle Rachel on her own. I blinked three more times, trying to figure out whether my eyes were going to keep working, and then typed out a quick reply.
Adam: Morning. Excited to hear about what you learned. Not excited to think about spending time alone with Rachel. Leaving that ball in your court. See you in the office. —A Borovich
The reminder of our impromptu conversation about Russian spies yesterday in the bar made me actually chuckle, and when she typed back that she was flattered to be working with such a famous spy, I laughed even harder.
Yes, it was juvenile. Yes, we should probably be more serious. But there was something incredibly familiar about having code names that only we knew about. And I was totally into it.
I mean, we were here under cover, right? Didn’t it make sense to have code names?
I sobered up the moment I looked into my email app. I had something from Oliver, and it was entitled “Read Immediately,” so I was pretty sure it wasn’t a cute cat meme or some joke about mothers-in-law.
Terrific. And I hadn’t even had any coffee yet.
“What now?” I groaned, thumbing to the message and opening it.
My eyes scanned the text quickly, taking it in at a speed that should have impressed anyone, considering how early it was.
Then I groaned.
This was getting more and more complicated the further I got into it.
Oliver had used his corporate security clearance to get into Arthur Smith the Tech Guy’s emails, and they were... well, complicated. Emails that were all about his financial security, and others that asked the people he was emailing how to hide certain things. Those looked to be mostly tech-centered, Oliver said, which meant he was probably trying to hide what he was doing in the network. There were also, though, some that had to do with money, and keeping it a secret.
So either he was working really hard to shield himself from taxes or he had money he didn’t want anyone else to find. Neither was a good look.
Oliver also noted that the guy had recently received an email invitation that looked like it led to a link where he could download the dark web. I’d never been to that corner of the Internet myself, but I knew enough about it to know that it was where hackers, thieves, and general miscreants hung out. Full of things that would never be accepted in normal society.
Not exactly something you downloaded if you were free and clear of any illegal activity.
Oliver’s final note was that since he didn’t actually have a tracking device on Arthur’s computer, he couldn’t see whether he had in fact downloaded the dark web or accessed it, and if he had, what he might have done there. But I didn’t think that mattered.
Like I said, it wasn’t the sort of thing you had sitting around if you didn’t want to be able to do browsing for illegal things without other people seeing you.
Still, the network for the Houston office wasn’t exactly hosted on the dark web. Arthur might go there on his free time, but anything he did in the office would still be visible, as long as Chase—the hacker I’d hired—and I looked in the right place.
So we should still be able to catch him. And with this information from Oliver, I was even more positive that he had to be our guy.
***
THE FUNNY THING WAS, Arthur didn’t look like the kind of guy who would steal millions of dollars from the company he was working for. He also didn’t look like the kind of guy who would browse the dark web for who knew what.
Though I had to admit that I wasn’t sure what kind of person would look like they browsed the dark web. Someone wearing all black leather, with ratty hair that they never bothered to comb? Black eyeliner? White makeup?
No, that was the lead singer from an emo band.
But still. Arthur, with his pocket protector and glasses and plaid shirt buttoned all the way to the top button, didn’t look at all like the kind of guy who got up to dangerous things in the middle of the night. He looked... like an accountant. One that always triple-checked his figures.
I mean, there was nothing wrong with that. Katie triple-checked her figures, and I knew that because I’d watched her do it more than once. She was insanely careful with numbers, almost to the point of obsession.
And there was definitely nothing wrong with her.
So there probably wasn’t anything wrong with a guy looking like he did that on the regular. After all, he was the office’s tech security guy. He was supposed to be careful.
“Arthur, right?” I asked. “Arthur Smith, the guy in charge of keeping this office safe from all the threats out there in the wide world?”
He gave me a sort of wavering smile and nodded. “You can just call me Superman. Protector of the weak, defender of those who’ve been hacked,” he quipped back.
Oh. Okay, so this guy wasn’t at all the nerdy, quiet person I’d taken him for. Not if he was going to come back with a comment like that.
I stuck out a hand to shake. “Alexander Borovich,” I said. Then I dropped my voice. “Though that’s not my real name. It’s my Russian spy name.”
His eyes widened. “I’ve always wanted one of those. Where did you get it?”
I shook my head. “That’s classified, I’m afraid. When you’re ready, they’ll contact you.” Then I shook off the play and got down to business. I mean, theoretically, I was here to get friendly with this guy so he would confide in me. But non-theoretically, I needed to be efficient and professional about it.
Couldn’t afford to fall into a trap where I liked him so much that I couldn’t think of him as a possible suspect.
“I’m actually working in the sales department,” I clarified. “And James Andrews sent me to find you. We’re thinking about doing something where we can track everyone’s movement more easily in terms of who they’re talking to, so we don’t have any overlap, but it’ll take an entirely new system. I think it’s a perfect solution to some double work we have going on, though, and James told me I needed to talk to you about whether it was possible or not.”
He snapped and pointed at me. “That’s a terrific idea! I don’t think it’s going to be that hard, and if I can use it for you guys, I’ll be able to use it for other departments, too. The truth is, customer service has some of the same problems. Redundancies, I mean. Customers who call for the same thing over and over again and get different agents, who each repeat the work someone else has already done. If we can find a way to get everything into one system so they could easily access a certain customer’s records...”
I snapped back at him, thinking that it must be the best way to get his attention. “That’s perfect! What works for one department should work for all departments. I didn’t know customer service was having a problem like ours.”
He shrugged. “I have a good friend in that department. Joseph Parissimo. He’s always complaining about it. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known, either.”
This was going so much better than I could have imagined. I hadn’t been positive that my idea would grab his attention, but he’d latched right onto it. Hell, I could practically see the wheels already turning in his head about how he was going to get it done.
“Perfect,” I said. “When you have some time, come up to the sales floor and find me. Adam Jones. I’ll be running point on this, and I’ve already got some ideas down on paper. I’m looking forward to working with you.”
“Same,” he said. “I’m always game for a new challenge!”
He turned and walked away without saying anything else, and I watched him go, my mind revolving around the conversation and logging it into my memory.
That had gone surprisingly well. Arthur wasn’t awkward at all, like our last suspect had been, and seemed genuinely interested in the idea I’d pitched. Bonus: I’d already outlined what systems he’d have to get into to build the tracking device I was talking about, and I knew it would be easy for Chase and me to follow him there. It would also give him access to some of the most important parts of the network—including the financial divisions—so if he found his way into the accounting files, we’d know.
This could be exactly what we needed in order to figure out whether he was keeping things straight and true with this company.
I turned and was walking toward the elevators, congratulating myself on a job well done and thinking about how proud Katie would be that I’d accomplished it so easily, when something Arthur had said struck me.
He knew about the customer service department because he had a good friend who worked there and was always complaining about redundancies. Joseph Parissimo.
Why did I know that name?
I came to a dead stop when I remembered.
Joseph Parissimo was the other suspect on our newest list. Which meant that two of our suspects were close friends.
And that seemed way too coincidental to be just coincidence.
I had my phone in my hand and my text thread with Katie up before I started walking again. I’d felt her pulling away from me for the past couple of days and had already planned to suggest a meeting today, just to get her back within my reach. Yes, I knew why she was pulling away. Or at least I thought I did.
She didn’t want to blow our cover. She wanted to make sure we didn’t look like anything more than two people who were staying in the same hotel. And I got that.
But I had the perfect reason for meeting with her. The case. We had things we needed to discuss, especially with this new information about Arthur and Joseph. And if anyone else asked? I’d tell them that we were working together on a project and that they needed to mind their own business.
I wanted the woman back in my presence. And that was no one’s business but my own.
I also wanted to get her all the new information I’d just gathered. And that was what I texted her about as I walked toward the elevator, one eye on my phone and one eye on the elevator bank in front of me.
