Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 110273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Her eyes were watering. Her bottom lip started trembling.
I nodded at her. “Obliterate this bitch, because I know you’re not just doing this for you, for me, for Matt. You’re doing this for Chrissy.” I inclined my head to her. “Thank you.”
She sniffled, drawing in a deep breath. A tear fell and she wiped it away with the back of her hand.
She grinned, though it was still shaky. “You’re not supposed to make me a blubbering mess.”
“I’m not supposed to do anything except love, cherish, and protect you.” I gestured to the computers. “Do your thing. We’ll cover you until the last second.”
Her eyes were clear again, locked on, focused, and when she looked back to the computer, I knew she was immune even to me being in that room. A circus could’ve thrown a show with elephants and she wouldn’t have let them pull her concentration away.
Fitz had been on the phone with Matt, who reported that Camille Story was fast becoming drunk and that her lips were getting looser and looser as the night wore on. She’d started talking about Quinn, so Matt wasn’t staying for Bailey anymore. He was staying because he hated Quinn more than anyone. When Fitz asked about her phone and if she was getting any alerts, he said she pulled her phone out once. She frowned at whatever she saw on the screen but clicked out of it and never pulled it out again. He had a plan in motion to try to sneak it away from her because he saw the key to get in.
I was okay with all of it.
Josh reported they found the hidden cameras in the apartment and everything was pulled. “You think your girl in there could loop some background video and make it look like the place had been empty the whole time?”
“I’ll ask her, but we need an ETA as soon as Matt calls when she leaves. I want to give Bailey as much—”
“I’m done! Hell yes, you motherfucking bitch!”
Josh and I both had to look down for a second.
Bailey continued cheering from the office and I nodded to him. “Call Matt. See if he can sneak her phone sooner than later. Have him erase any alerts she might’ve gotten.”
“If she saw the first one?”
That was a gamble. “I’m judging by the fact that she stayed and chose not to worry about it. When it goes missing, she’ll pretend she never saw it.”
He grunted, nodding. “You think she’s really that hard up for him that she’d choose to ignore a security alert?”
That was the gambling part. “I’m hoping that she never got any follow-up alerts and assumed it was a momentary glitch.”
“Maybe your girl could put her spy stuff on this chick’s system?”
Josh had been fully briefed on everything Bailey was capable of.
“I’ll ask, but knowing Bailey, she’s already ahead of us.”
She proved my point when I entered the office again.
She wheeled around, all smiles and literally glowing. A sheen of sweat covered her face, and she jerked her hair up in a hair tie and gushed. “I got everything. Everything! It’s all been transferred to an account that’s off-line. Take that, you bitch. You want to fight by keeping shit off-line, I’ll do the same. I cleaned everything but let her keep certain items that aren’t harmful to any of us. She had a crap load on Quinn, things that will be helpful if we need to use it. And”—Literally. Fucking. Glowing.—“I uploaded my hacking program. It’s the ghost program I was working on before.”
Some of the glow lessened. She bit her lip, looking down. “I got the codes for her security system. I looped footage from earlier in the day, changed the time stamps and put them in. I also wiped two alerts she got on her phone. They showed that she hadn’t seen it yet, so we’re good on that account. Now we have to leave, and she’ll have no clue we were here.”
She started to wheel back but stopped. Her hand in the air. “Oh!” She pointed around the office. “Could you take pictures of everything in here? Just to have. When she has the computer on, I can watch her from there, but you know.” Some of the glow was fading, and fading fast. She’d been on an upswing of adrenaline and emotion. She was going to crash soon. “The psych part of this office is probably off the charts.”
I crossed the office and leaned down.
My arms went around both sides of her.
She looked up, her eyes wide and trusting—starting to cloud over, but still so trusting.
I stifled so many other things I wanted to say to her at that time. I brushed my lips to her forehead, tucked some of her loose strands behind her ear, and turned her back around. “Finish up. We’ll take care of the rest.”