CHAPTER ONE WREN
I let the familiar murmur of office gossip wash over me, slipping in one ear and out the other.
I didn’t attempt to join in. I was a temp, like several other admins scattered throughout the file room.
I hadn’t been around long enough to know what my coworkers were talking about, and I wouldn’t be there long enough to care.
Flipping through a drawer, I searched for the next file on my list to pull.
Tilting my head forward, I let my hair fall forward to mask my face.
The light brown wig was distinctive only for its complete averageness.
The shade wasn’t quite brown, not really blonde.
It was meh. Exactly like the rest of me.
In my guise as a temp file clerk, I wore a boxy cut, ill-fitting navy suit.
Utilitarian navy pumps. Cheapish pantyhose.
Bottom-tier department store jewelry. Dull brown contact lenses and a makeup job that made me look professional and yet completely unmemorable.
On the books, I was here to fill a temporary staffing hole in the filing department of Atlanta Logistics, a mid-size shipping and transport firm based out of the north side of Atlanta.
The filing department was only my way in.
My real job—one I had to pull off with none of my coworkers catching on—was to determine how Atlanta Logistics was systematically siphoning proprietary shipping data from its chief competitor, our client. At least for this assignment.
So far, the job had been a snore. Their on-site security was slack.
I’d had no trouble in the previous two days using my infrequent coffee and bathroom breaks to turn down the wrong hall, let myself into locked offices, the rooms housing classified files, and pretty much anywhere else I’d wanted to go.
The few times I’d been stopped, I’d covered it with a shy, embarrassed, “Oops, I have no sense of direction. Sorry.”
No one had questioned me or even looked remotely suspicious.
I didn’t need to check my watch to know it was closing in on four thirty.
This was my last day on the job, and I only had one target left.
Access logs in the server room. I’d saved it until the end for a few reasons.
One, I needed a little time to get a feel for the flow of the place and test the security in less incendiary areas than the server room.
So far, I’d learned they needed a security audit.
Their staff was lazy and their tech out of date.
The server room was a different story. Hidden behind a plain white door secured with a keypad, with live security cameras trained on the door, it was the one place I needed to access that would be difficult to shrug off if I were caught, hence saving it until now.
I pulled up the file I’d been looking for, checked my list, and quickly located the remaining two files.
Marking my list done, I turned to my team supervisor.
“I have these done.” I showed her my log sheet, everything neatly ticked off. “I’ll go deliver them, then hit the bathroom on the way back.”
“Sounds great.” She gave me a distracted smile, already turning to check the next log sheet. “Take your time. We’re about to wind up for the day anyway.”
I nodded, flashed a grateful smile, and headed out of the room with my bin, making my way down the hall, my step more hesitant than my usual stride.
Shoulders rounded slightly forward, chin tucked down.
Nondescript, nonthreatening, neutral-to-low confidence.
Just another office drone. Nothing to look at and no one to notice.
It was the easiest way to get my kind of work done.
There were people who drew attention and people who didn’t.
So often people thought they wanted to be the first—all eyes on you, making you feel important, relevant.
I got it, I guess. But I’d rather occupy the shadows, be the figure no one could recall clearly later.
There was power in that, more than being the center of attention.
Too many eyes felt like a trap. Like this, with my dull hair, boring makeup, unattractive suit, I was a ghost. I could go anywhere and do anything. I hoped.
I looked down at the lanyard hanging around my neck, my temporary security badge swinging with my stride. We would see if I was as smart as I thought I was.
A thrill of anticipation tingled down my spine. I appreciated a job well done, and so far that was what I’d delivered. But it was always more fun when there was a little bit of risk.
With a bland half smile, I deposited my bin on the desk in the marketing department, handed the file request log to the office manager there, and scuttled out.
Instead of turning left, back toward the file room, I went right.
I’d already scoped where the server room was, how often security walked the hall, and had a rough idea of how long it would take to get in.
Maddox, providing tech support on this op, had hacked in to both divert the security cameras and clear my access code for the door.
If not, I’d have to think fast, but I had an alternate approach tucked in my back pocket.
If Maddox’s code didn’t get me in, I thought the crude but small signal scrambler might override the lock long enough for me to bypass it.
Their devotion to profit margin would be Atlanta Logistics’ downfall.
My work here had taught me that they’d been dragging their feet on digitizing their files and upgrading their security.
They didn’t want to spend the money, preferring their underhanded siphoning from my client instead. Now they were vulnerable.
Internally, I shrugged. Not my job to judge, but in my opinion, if you were going to get into corporate espionage, either pick a target who can’t come after you, or cover your ass with decent security. But this?—
Inwardly, I rolled my eyes. This was just sloppy.
Our client, the target of this firm’s espionage, not only had excellent security, thanks to my true employers, Sinclair Security, they weren’t afraid to spend money where it mattered. Like hiring me. I wasn’t cheap, but I was fucking good.
Head still tilted down, face averted from the center of the hall, as if I was looking at something in my left hand, I walked down the hall, closing in on the server room. I passed a few people here and there, either ignoring them or lifting my chin in vague acknowledgment.
No one stopped me. No one asked who I was or where I was going.
And yet, the back of my neck tickled. The feeling started right at the base of my skull.
A prickle of energy. I resisted the urge to turn around and look behind me.
I wasn’t an amateur, for fuck’s sake. I knew I was alone in the hall.
No one was watching me. This wasn’t the first time I’d felt that prickle.
Sometimes on my neck, sometimes between my shoulder blades.
For the past few weeks, it was there. In the MARTA station while I waited for a train.
In the file room at Atlanta Logistics. And most worrying, I’d felt it once or twice sitting at my desk in Hacker Central at Sinclair Security.
I’d been doing this long enough to trust the feeling, but I didn’t know where it was coming from, which bugged the hell out of me.
I added an extra loop through the winding hallways of the building to flush out anyone who might be on my tail.
There was no one, just endless yards of carpet and beige doors with metal handles.
In the quiet, I could have been swallowed up by the back rooms. Was I losing it?
It could all be in my head. No one in my line of work had an indefinite shelf life.
High stress and extreme danger could make the most well-balanced operator lose their edge.
I wouldn’t be the first to slip into paranoia and irrationality.
I felt the need to look up and to my left at the security camera I knew was there, the urge so strong it took physical effort to resist. Had security clocked me?
Were they following my path through the halls on the cameras?
They could have been. It was possible they were waiting for me to make my move.
Right now, I could just be a temp file clerk, lost in this expansive and confusing office building.
The second I attempted to break into the server room, I’d show my hand.
I’d been relying on the idea that no one was watching, but now— I gave in to the urge to rub the back of my neck. I didn’t know how, or who, or why, but every nerve in my body said someone had eyes on me.
I’d learned in this job: research, prepare, but always trust my gut.
Fuck.
It didn’t matter. If Atlanta Logistics security was watching me, I’d know soon enough.
And if it was something else, I’d have to deal with them later.
I had a job to finish, and I needed those server logs.
Taking a long, slow breath, I went right at the next intersection, then a left, and one final right turn later found myself in front of the server room.
The white metal door was set into the long white wall of the hallway, designed to fade from view, unlike the office doors extending in front of me.
Their attempt at subterfuge only made it more noticeable.
Chest-high on the right side was a stainless steel square with a cutout for a basic screen, the keypad below almost identical to the kind you’d see in a public phone booth.
I wanted to groan. When had they bought this thing? The last millennium?
Hoping Maddox had done his thing, I punched in the code. Ten thirteen, my birthday. Then the pound sign.
My heart froze in my chest for an endless second.
With an audible click, the keypad glowed green, and the lock on the door disengaged with a snap.
A quick twist of the metal handle and I was inside.
I held my breath, listening over the hum of the racks of servers for the sound of human movement, the shuffle of a footstep, the rasp of breathing. Nothing.
That didn’t mean I was alone.
The clock was ticking. Time to finish the job before time ran out.
I glanced around, trying to orient myself among the racks of servers and find what I was looking for.
There, in the corner, not far from the door.
A workstation with an elderly-looking desktop.
I didn’t need to get into the servers themselves.
I wanted the access logs. Hopefully, the code Maddox gave me would work here too.
The desktop was as ancient as the keypad at the door. What kind of business were these people running? If they’d invested in their own infrastructure as easily as they had in stealing from their competitor— I shook my head. Not my problem. I was getting paid either way.
I typed my four-digit code into the password screen and hit Enter. A password box filled with red X’s.
Shit.
I thought quickly through my options. It wouldn’t be the easy way this time.
I wasn’t the hacker Maddox was. In fact, now that my team had been folded into the larger business of Sinclair Security, I was nowhere close to being the best hacker.
Sinclair was one of the best private security companies in the country, if not the world.
Every department—K&R, Research, IT—was staffed with the best.
My team and I had joined up months before. Been sold, actually, when my old boss and mentor had handed our group to Sinclair Security and disappeared. I shook off the rising feelings of fear and worry that always surfaced when I thought about Silas.
Silas was a problem for later.
Right now I had to deal with what was in front of me.
Even if I wasn’t one of the best hackers at Sinclair, I was still well above average.
Surely I could get into this console. I stared at the screen for a second, rapidly evaluating various techniques to break through the password lock.
It only took a second, and without consciously thinking of what I was doing my fingers flew over the keyboard, bypassing the password box, sliding into the terminal and talking directly to the operating system.
My first attempt was a dead end. My second, fooling the password algorithm with a fake, opened exactly what I was looking for.
I pulled up my lanyard, holding it so I knew the nearly invisible camera inside could see the whole screen, and shot digital image after digital image.
Not just the access logs to this room, but communication packets going in and out.
Numbers flashed across the screen as I scrolled, clicked, scrolled, documenting everything, including what I knew would be hard evidence that Atlanta Logistics had been accessing my client’s shipping data directly from their own server room.
“Idiots,” I murmured as the proof slid by on the screen.
The whole thing took less than five minutes. I logged out of the computer, left the chair exactly as I’d found it—half pushed in, angled slightly toward the door—and stepped back.
That spot between my shoulder blades itched with a fierce insistence.
Eyes were on me. I knew better, and still I couldn’t resist the urge to turn.
In the far corner of the room, close to the ceiling— A security camera.
I stared into the lens, unblinking, thoughts tumbling in my head.
Whoever was watching me—and every cell in my body knew that somewhere, someone was studying me through that camera—I didn’t think it was Atlanta Logistics’ internal security or they’d be here already.
The door remained closed, the hallway outside quiet.
Who was watching me? And why?
I let the questions pile up then shut them off.
One thing at a time. Letting myself out of the server room, I ducked around one corner, then another until I joined the wider hall, now crowded with employees shuffling toward the door.
I checked my watch. Five minutes to five on a Friday.
I could go back to my desk, check out with my supervisor.
Or I could just follow the crowd and leave now.
I hadn’t brought a purse or a lunch box. I didn’t need to go back to my desk. I stayed where I was, shoulder to shoulder with other employees, blending into the crowd, letting it carry me down the hall, through the double doors to the marble-floored atrium and out to the parking lot.
Freedom.
No one stopped me. There was no, “Hey, miss, just a minute.”
And yet with every step I took, I felt those eyes crawling over my skin, marking me.
They weren’t watching my masquerade of a nondescript office drone.
They saw me. Wren Calder. I didn’t know how I knew that, but I did.
It didn’t matter that I had no proof that I was being watched, much less that whoever was watching knew who I was. My gut said different.
Read Deadly Promise to see what happens next!