Loverboy (The Company #2) - Sarina Bowen Page 0,26

I feel like a jerk. “Of course. Go right ahead. Just don’t leave before I get back.”

“No problem.” I watch her shove the cash pouch into her shoulder bag. “Hey—are you okay to just walk around alone with that?”

She stares at me. “I do this every afternoon. What are you, my self-appointed bodyguard?”

Well, actually … “Never mind,” I force myself to say.

“I took a full self-defense course at the Y, I’ll have you know.”

“You go ahead, then. Sorry to interfere.”

She walks out the door, and I count to ten. Then I get up and walk over to the window, pressing my temple against the glass so I can see her pass down the street. The moment she’s disappeared, I grab my jacket off the hook and pull a pouch out of the pocket. There’s a small camera inside, the size of a woman’s lipstick case.

I carry it over to the wall opposite the coffee bar and start looking for the best place to conceal it. Posy’s decor makes my deception pretty easy—the shelf with all the animal statuettes is perfect for this. If I’m careful, I can position it to show me the computer screen of anyone who’s sitting at the big table in front.

I flip a small switch on the camera housing and then tuck the device between the legs of a ceramic cow. I use a short stack of pennies to lever the thing into an angle that makes sense to me. And then I sit in the chair.

Tapping the face of my watch a couple of times, I call Max.

“Yo!” my partner in crime says. “What have you got for me?”

“I’ve got fifteen bucks an hour and some tips,” I say drily. “I just activated a remote camera. What can you see?”

“A table, your hands, and a napkin dispenser.”

“Fair enough.” I get out of the chair and head for the door to the back. A glance at the street tells me Posy isn’t back yet. I have no idea how long it takes to make a bank deposit. “Any action on the boards today?”

“There was, but I don’t have a report on the locations yet,” he says. “Pieter is working on it.”

“Please, baby Jesus, let there be a reason I made eight million lattes today.”

“Your body cam is still broadcasting,” Max says. “If you’re on the way to the john, you should shut that off.”

I reach up and click off the pen-shaped camera in my shirt pocket. “I’m about to download the log files from Posy’s computer onto a thumb drive.” Between the front of the house and the kitchen, there’s a doorway to the world’s smallest office. It’s basically a closet with a desk wedged into it. I sit down in Posy’s office chair and give the computer mouse a shake.

“This is an ancient PC,” I grumble. “We were using machines like this back when Call of Duty 2 was cool.”

“It should be easy to crack, then.”

“Yeah.” In fact, I don’t even reach for the password cracking device in my pocket. First, I’ll try my hunch. Humans—ninety seven percent of the time—choose predictable passwords. And the logo image for Posy’s Pie Shop is as good a place as any to begin. I type L-e-m-o-n into the password window, and then hesitate. “Max, how do you spell meringue?

“M-E-R”

“I got that part. But then … I?”

“No, E-N-G-U-E?”

Password failed. “Nope.”

“Isn’t E the way you get a long A in Spanish?”

“Shouldn’t this be French?”

“Well, do you mean the Latin dance? Or the white stuff on pie?”

“It’s a fucking pie shop, Max.” I quickly try it the other way.

“Don’t get testy with me, cowboy.”

“Kind of in a hurry here,” I grumble. But the computer blinks to life. “Jesus, the security here is terrible.”

“That makes our job easier. Get the modem log.”

“Duh.” I pull up a command prompt and type like my ass is on fire. I pop a thumb drive into the machine and start the download I need. “Hopefully we can match up some of your message board action with the time stamp on this thing. I hope it goes back a few weeks.”

“Same dude, same. Did you check out the employees’ devices?”

“Posy has an iPhone. The kid who washes dishes has a battered iPad. The customers all have laptops, though. Some of them camp out for hours.”

“Roger.”

I glance at the command window and then curse. Transfer failed. “Max, gotta jump. I'm having some trouble here.”

“What? Dude, we need that—”

“I know. Later.” I tap my watch, hanging up on him.