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The thief glanced at caller ID and declined the call for the third time. He didn’t need the pressure right now. And they wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for her.
If he didn’t love her so much, he’d have killed her for her stupidity.
He had to focus on the problem at hand. He didn’t know how much time he had. He’d waited until everyone else had left, then went into his boss’s office. Now, reading through his boss’s email, he realized Desert West had put private investigators on retainer to look into the illegal downloading of proprietary information.
On the surface, that wasn’t a problem—he had already worked on laying the trail to frame Jennifer White, and with her unusual and erratic behavior no one should question it. Anything she said would be suspect. But this email indicated that the PI was bringing in a computer expert to analyze data directly from the server. That could potentially expose him.
Hoping for more information, he clicked on the report in the email. If he knew exactly what they planned to do, he might be able to cover his tracks.
Dammit, it was password-protected.
He didn’t need this, not now. Jennifer was gone, and with her the evidence of his crime. He needed her laptop. He needed to stay on top of these so-called experts.
Sunday, when he lost Jennifer and the laptop, he’d returned to the office and, near tears, ended his “processing fee” program. All that cash flow...gone. He’d taken time to rewrite the code to erase the program, but it was a Band-Aid fix. He didn’t have the time or—he admitted to himself—the skill to backtrack over the last fourteen months of potential evidence.
It wasn’t fair! That bitch had stumbled on his brilliant plan and ruined everything.
And now, someone from Angelhart Investigations was coming in.
He couldn’t let them download the data. While the program was no longer running, and he’d left a trail pointing at Jennifer White, they might be able to trace everything to him.
He’d been successful for more than a year and wham! Jennifer White puts her nose in software she should never have seen and destroys him.
“Calm down,” he told himself.
“Excuse me?” The building security guard was walking through the office.
“Sorry, I’m just gathering up work.”
“You need to be out of the office by five thirty because building maintenance is setting bug bombs,” the guard said. “No one comes in until five thirty tomorrow morning.”
It was a farce he now realized, but he went along with it. “Yes, I know, sorry. Work never ends.” He smiled. He was the last one here and felt stuck.
The guard looked at his watch. “Five minutes, okay?”
“Yeah—thanks.”
The guard walked away to check the other offices.
Be calm. They’re not setting off bug poison.
He looked up at the ceiling. Desert West had the entire third floor. The fourth floor was partly vacant.
He had an idea.
He said good bye to the guard and rushed down to the parking garage. Popped his trunk and extracted—carefully—the last nitrogen canister. He hoped it was enough—he’d release it in the vent above the main computer room where they would be working. He grabbed his gym bag. It didn’t have clothes or shoes; instead, it had supplies for just such an emergency.
Desperate times, desperate measures.
He used the elevator and bypassed the lobby, going directly to the fourth floor. By the time he reached the empty office, he was sweating and his hands were nearly raw from carrying the heavy metal canister.
He broke the lock and quickly went inside. Closed the door. Waited. Heard nothing.
He would wait until the investigators were in the office, then he would put them into a deep sleep, go downstairs, and finish destroying the evidence.
Yes, he would need to completely wipe the Desert West Financial server. It would damage the business, but sacrifices had to be made. They would recover eventually. And if he did it right, all fingers would point to Jennifer White, like he originally intended.
He wiped his brow. He was sweating. The AC wasn’t on up here.
