The Hacker - Nancy Herkness Page 0,3
any kind once he’d ended his boxing career, saying he’d seen enough hurt to last the rest of his life. She admired him for that.
But she owed him even more. He was the one who had encouraged her to become certified as a personal trainer. She’d been teaching her self-defense classes at the gym—the only bright spot in her life at the time—when he’d told her she’d make a great trainer and offered to pay for the courses she needed. She sometimes felt as though he had saved her life—or, at the very least, her sanity.
Dawn raised her eyebrows as he continued to look at her in bafflement. “Seriously? Vicky didn’t say anything?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Although I remember some guys messing around with the computers a couple of times last week. I don’t pay much attention to the tech stuff.”
“Well, for the last ten days, the customers have been giving all of us trainers an earful about how they can’t stream TV or movies on the treadmills and ellipticals. It seems no one can break a sweat without entertainment anymore.”
“I wondered why it was so quiet in the equipment room recently, but I didn’t pinpoint the reason.” Her boss tugged at his short ponytail, which meant he was worried. “So people are really annoyed?”
“Yeah. I even switch off the Wi-Fi on my phone when I’m at the gym because it’s so incredibly slow. I thought you knew about the issue.”
“Vick usually takes care of stuff like that.”
“From what I can tell, she’s tried, but I guess the people she’s brought in couldn’t fix it.” Dawn sat back in her chair. “Luckily, I have a solution.”
“The free one?” Ramón looked skeptical.
“Yup. My friend Alice—who’s a member here too—is engaged to a very fancy consultant from New York City. His firm, KRG Consulting, runs a free program to help small business owners with problems. Alice hooked me up with their computer expert. All you have to do is agree and he’ll jump right on it.”
“It sounds too good to be true.” When Ramón shifted in his chair, it creaked so loudly that Dawn feared it might collapse under him.
“I’d agree with you except that I saw what they did for Alice’s bookkeeping issue.” Of course, Alice had nearly gotten herself killed when she and Derek uncovered the fraud that had created the problem. “They put every resource she needed into the project, even rented a private jet. At no cost to her.”
“I’d have to run it by Vicky.” Ramón still sounded dubious.
“I know. She’s the tech queen.” Although how Vicky could even type without ruining her jewel-encrusted manicure, Dawn couldn’t figure out. She stood up. “Let me know if you want to use KRG’s services.”
As she walked away from the management office, she frowned. It surprised her that Ramón wasn’t aware of the Wi-Fi problem. Why the hell hadn’t Vicky told him after all this time?
It also complicated things for her because she had expected Ramón to hail KRG’s assistance as a lifesaver. Now she was in the awkward position of having asked for help for someone who might not accept it. Hopefully, Leland was too busy to care whether a gym in Cofferwood, New Jersey, wanted his assistance or not.
No such luck, though. After she finished with her first client, Dawn checked her email messages. She grimaced when she saw one from Leland.
Ready when you are.
She considered ignoring it until she’d heard Ramón’s decision. Leland would figure that she was working and hadn’t read it yet. She started to slide her phone back into her sweatshirt pocket and then stopped. Leland was a computer expert. He might be able to tell that she’d read his email.
She growled in frustration, pulled out her phone, and read it again. On second glance, it seemed a little provocative. She was only supposed to put him in touch with her boss. His words made it sound like they would be working on the problem together.
No, she had to be imagining things. After a minute’s thought, she typed out a careful response.
My boss is excited about the opportunity, but his wife is the IT person so he doesn’t want to step on her toes. He’s going to get back to me after he speaks with her.
Thanks,
Dawn
That was only a slight lie. A polite one.
She started to stow her phone but decided to wait a minute. Without the Wi-Fi connection to screw things up, her regular phone service still worked fine. Sure enough, an