A Cop In Her Stocking

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Was someone watching her?

She squinted into the night, but she could make out nothing but shadow and swirling white. Still, it could be possible the kidnapper was keeping tabs on her, making sure she followed through with his orders.

She hurried to the door. Still glancing around her, she stomped her feet free of snow, unlocked the glass door and slipped into the vestibule, closing and locking the door behind her. The alarm beeped its countdown. She punched the security code into the number pad to turn it off.

She wished she could engage the alarm while inside, but unfortunately that wasn’t how this system was designed. Once the alarm was engaged, so were the interior motion sensors. One step and she’d set off an alarm herself. She’d just have to rely on the dead bolt on the door and get her business done quickly.

She opened the interior door and escaped into the halls, away from the glass exposing her to anyone who might be watching from the parking lot or street. Reaching the janitor’s closet, she leaned on the door frame and let a breath shudder from her chest.

Her knees felt weak, and she had to concentrate to keep them from wobbling. The client files must be kept on secure servers that weren’t linked to the internet, to prevent hacking. Otherwise, the kidnapper probably could have broken into the system remotely, and he’d have no need for her to use the access her job cleaning the building afforded her.

She hung the backpack vacuum on the handle of the garbage cart and pulled a cleaning kit off the shelf, as if she was going about her normal work routine. The chances of her being interrupted weren’t good, but she wanted to be prepared just in case. As far as she knew, no one at Keating Security knew her background in computer systems. Why would they? As long as she was bonded, they had no reason to distrust her. Of course, Gary Burke knew. A second cousin of Doug’s, he’d been charitable enough to give her a job with Brilliance Cleaning when her career had tanked in the middle of a tough economy. But he had contracts of his own to service. He rarely ever checked up on her. Either way, as long as she had the cleaning equipment handy, no one would think twice about finding her in one of the offices that housed the secure network.

It took her three offices to find a computer linked to the internal server. Situated in the corner of the building, the room felt uncomfortably exposed. Windows stretched along two walls, one peering out on the parking lot, the other on the adjacent wooded park. Again that feeling that someone was watching prickled over her skin. She moved to the side of one window and peered out.

Darkness stared back at her punctuated by white flakes swirling in the streetlights along the parking area’s edge. She saw no vehicles, no movement. The forest side showed nothing but the skeletal shadows of trees barely visible through the snow.

The creepy feeling was probably caused by her guilty conscience. She shivered and closed both sets of blinds anyway. She had to keep herself together. Find what she needed fast and get out.

Pulling a dusting wand from her kit for cover, she sat down at the desk, turned on the computer and focused on the monitor.

Password. She needed a password.

Her heart thumped so loud at first she thought it was heavy footsteps coming down the hall. She opened the desk drawer. Whether the company liked it or not, employees often kept their passwords written down and in easily accessed areas. With so many passwords for work programs and websites accessed at home, no one could keep all of them locked in their memories.

Sure enough, a small card was taped to the drawer’s steel bottom, a collection of random letters and numbers printed on the card. She entered it onto the keyboard and a list of the company’s clients popped up on the screen. She was in.

So far, so good.

She pulled out of her pocket a flash drive she’d brought from home and plugged it into a USB port. Now all she had to do was download the files for each client. She read over the names as she copied the list onto the drive.

A low rumble seemed to shake the building.

Her pulse jumped. She thrust up from the chair and stepped to the window. Splitting the blinds slightly with her fingers, she peered outside.

The yellow lights of a snowplow stuttered through the falling snow. It grumbled down the street and around a corner.

She let the blinds fall back into place, closed her eyes for a moment and focused on calming her racing pulse.

She made a horrible crook.

She sucked in a shaky breath and sat back down in front of the monitor. She had to focus on Connor, on getting him home safe, protecting her son. That’s all she could let herself think about.

The client list was the easy part. She had no idea how long copying the actual specifications on each client’s security system would take. She was only cleared to be in the building for a window of four hours, and if she hoped to cover her tracks, she needed to do at least a passable job of cleaning before her time ran out.

Another rumble came from outside.

Glancing out the corner of her eye in hopes that the sound was nothing but another snowplow, she clicked on the first client on the list, a pharmaceutical company. She directed the file to download to her flash drive.

The monitor went dark.

A surge of panic slammed through her. She clicked again, and the loud buzz of an alarm split the air.

Chapter Five

Ty had just stepped onto the snow-covered lawn of Keating Security when an alarm broke the white-blanketed stillness.