Tempt Me (31 page)

His stomach jumped. Just his luck that Sasha Sebastiani was working the coffeehouse side of the family complex tonight. “Um, yeah.”

She smiled down at him, stylus expectantly poised over a handheld gadget. Her manner was professional, friendly. She didn't know him from Adam. Suddenly he was starving. “I’ll have two eggs over hard, an order of bacon, hash browns and a lightly toasted English muffin, please.”

She tapped almost as quickly as he spoke. “Anything to drink?”

“Large coffee.”

“Leaded or unleaded?”

“Caffeinated, please.” He had hours of work ahead of him tonight. His most important task? Figuring out the fastest way to get one of his guys hired at Sebastiani Labs. Buddha hadn’t been at all forthcoming about the specific information he wanted. “Just get me an in,” he’d said.

With SkoolHaus out of commission, it was easier said than done.

His food arrived quickly, delivered by some dude, not Sasha. Picking up his phone, he popped in a pair of ear buds, pretended to select some music, and eavesdropped on the bawdy conversation at the next table while watching Bailey and Antonia. As he crunched into his last piece of bacon, he saw Bailey smother a yawn, snap the binder closed and start gathering her belongings. Antonia stood and stretched, exposing a vulnerable slice of belly. A small object fell from her lap, bouncing off the hardwood floor, coming to rest just under the love seat.

A USB stick. The Incubus Second had dropped a thumb drive.

Jackpot.

He held his breath while Antonia chattered away, stuffing her things into a backpack so heavy that slinging it over one shoulder pulled her momentarily off-balance. Giggling, she righted herself, stepped into her discarded flip-flops, and tugged Bailey off the couch. Talking quietly, they left through the coffee shop’s inside entrance, no doubt heading for the private elevator leading to the penthouse.

Leaving the USB stick behind.

Dropping money on the table, he walked across the coffee shop, carrying his mug with him. He made it to the leather love seat before anyone else sat down.

“Let me clear this up for you,” Sasha said, picking up the empty mugs and crumpled napkins Bailey and Antonia had left behind.

He pulled out an ear bud. “Thanks. The fire feels wonderful tonight.”

“Doesn’t it?” She treated him to a gamine grin that had a distinct sexual pull. “Can I get you a refill?”

He glanced at his half-full mug, then back at her. “No thanks. I’m set.”

“Enjoy.”

“Thanks.” Dropping down on the love seat, he picked up the latest
City Pages
from the pile of newspapers and magazines lying on the coffee table, opened it with a crackle, and pretended to read. After a couple of minutes, he reached for his coffee mug, fumbling the paper. Several pages of the pulpy newsweekly fluttered to floor.

Right next to the stick Antonia had carelessly dropped.

With an exasperated sigh for anyone who might be watching, he bent down, picked up the pages, and scooped up the hot pink Hello Kitty USB stick at the same time.

Hello Kitty. He nearly rolled his eyes.

Neatly reassembling the paper, he set it back on the table, finished his last ounce of coffee, and left.

Behind the counter, Sasha smiled, picked up her phone, and dialed.

***

A
t the Bunker the next morning, Bailey lifted her hands off the keyboard and flexed her stiff wrists. “I think we’re in business.”

“Undetected?” Lukas asked.

“So far, so good.” According to Chico, who was upstairs monitoring audio from the bug Cheyenne had managed to plant in Wyatt’s bedroom, the shower had just stopped running, and Wyatt was getting dressed. Bailey glanced at the clock. Wyatt was running late—so late he might not notice she was jacked into his laptop.

As she’d predicted, Wyatt had hit Antonia’s USB stick as soon as he’d gotten home from Crack House last night, spending hours sifting through the supposedly confidential documents the youngest member of the Underworld Council might carelessly carry on her person. With each click, with each document he’d opened, she’d surreptitiously slithered in, crippling his security apps and replacing them with her own, blowing his system wide open and giving her full control. After countless hours and endless cups of coffee, her brain and body were about to shatter apart, but she was in.

She had root, so she was God.

When she stretched her arms overhead, her hands brushed against Lukas’s chest. Whirling on her stool, she purposely clipped him in the shin with her boot. “Will you quit—” she waved her hands at him “—looming?”

The kick didn’t have any obvious effect, but Lukas, carrying his morning sickness trash can, stepped back anyway.

Her foot jiggled as she glanced at the clock. If the calendar Cheyenne had stolen a quick peek at was accurate, Wyatt had an on-site meeting with a customer in Woodbury this morning. Between the round-trip commute and the time it would take for Wyatt to tour the customer’s manufacturing facility, she’d have a three-hour window to work unobserved—if he didn’t take the damn laptop with him. The wait was killing her. “I need more coffee.”

“Stay put.” Jack rose from the futon he shared with Antonia, who’d drifted off to sleep a couple of hours ago. “I’ll get it.”

“That’s okay. You’ve been bringing me coffee all night long.” She stood and stretched again, joints audibly popping. “I need to stretch my legs.”

Lukas and Jack exchanged a glance.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

An ugly suspicion dawned. “I’m drinking decaf, aren’t I?”

Jack shot her an exasperated look. “You just had surgery for a freaking ulcer.”

Her shoulders sagged. No wonder she was so damn tired.

Lukas’s mini blipped. “Okay, he’s out of the apartment and on his way to his car.”

She glanced at her screen. Her programs were still running, which meant he’d left his laptop on the desk in his bedroom rather than take it with him.
Showtime.
“I can’t think with you hovering over my shoulder.” Nudging Lukas aside with her elbow, she sat back down again and fired up a crawler script that would suck up files like a Hoover, quickly copying them to an external drive attached to her computer. One copy of Wyatt’s hard drive would be taken into evidence untouched, but she’d tear other copies apart personally.

“Guys? Seriously. Back off.”

“Come on.” Jack tugged on Lukas’s T-shirt sleeve. “Let's give her some space.”

The futon creaked ominously as Lukas sat down. Jack left the room. Sounds receded as she stared at the screen, visualizing the architecture, the bits and bytes flying, the ones and zeroes streaming between programs. She superimposed a mental map of her bore routes, and the precise damage they’d wreaked along the way.

After a quick check of her own equipment, she started exploring Wyatt’s hard drive. They needed information, and fast. “Music, videos, pictures, contracts, spreadsheets, tax documents,” she muttered as she clicked. “He’s auto-logging his instant messages, the dumb shit.” She’d read the chats later; right now, time was at a premium. Where were his client files, his dossiers? Who’d hired him to infiltrate Sebastiani Labs, and what were they looking for?

“See anything we can use?” Jack was back with more coffee.

“Not yet.” She kept clicking. “Here are the documents we planted on Antonia’s stick—ah, here we go.” Dozens of folders and files, going back years. She saw big brand names, multi-nationals, NASDAQ companies and start-ups. Not every folder had a copy of a contract—a big tip-off that the work might not be strictly legal—and none of it was encrypted or password protected. “Christ on a cracker, a new law school grad working their first case could connect these dots before breakfast.” She grabbed the thermal mug and took a big slug of the decaf. Maybe she’d get some placebo effect from its scent, taste and warmth.

Lukas came up behind her and peered over her shoulder. “What’s this?” He pointed at a folder named ASSOCIATES.

She clicked on it, her eyes widening. Wyatt had used people’s hacker handles as filenames? This was a prosecutor’s wet dream. “What an idiot, leaving all this information lying around where anyone can get at it.”

“You’re hardly anyone,” Lukas said. “Accessing this information took some...unique skill.”

“All someone has to do is break into his apartment and steal the damn laptop,” she scoffed. “If the hard drive falls into the wrong hands, he—and they—are screwed.” She skimmed the list. “This guy’s doing time. So is he.” Further down, she recognized the name of a young woman who’d hacked her abusive father’s pacemaker, permanently incapacitating him. And there was Andy, who’d been quickly and quietly fired from his automotive industry job. Though his intentions had been good—he’d only meant to expose vulnerabilities in the vehicle’s onboard computer system—remotely disabling the car’s brakes during a high-speed test drive probably hadn’t been the smartest move.

Any device connected to a network—cars, medical devices, phones, gadgets—could be hacked, and most of the associates on Wyatt’s list had the skill to do the job.

Jack pointed. “There’s your name.”

And Rafe’s, right underneath it. What the hell... She sorted the files by date. Four dossiers had been updated within the last twenty-four hours—hers, Rafe’s, SkoolHausRok’s, and someone named Buddha. She wiggled her cursor over SkoolHaus’s file. “I've heard of this guy—solid skills—but this Buddha? Haven’t heard of him.” She clicked, opening the file. As was his habit, Wyatt had written his dossier with the most recent entry at the top of the document. She did a quick search on ‘Sebastiani Labs.’ Multiple hits. “Jackpot,” she bit out. “Who are you, Buddha, and what do you want?”

Lukas pulled up a chair—much better than having his six-and-a-half foot frame looming behind her like Frankenstein’s monster. Antonia sat on his lap.

For several minutes, the room was silent, except for the whirring fans keeping the room cool. “Blackmail?” Antonia suddenly said, pointing toward the bottom of the screen. “Cooper claims he’s being blackmailed by this Buddha guy.”

Bailey read the paragraph Antonia had gotten to before anyone else. “If Wyatt doesn’t penetrate Sebastiani Labs and turn over any and all information to this Buddha, Buddha turns him in to the authorities.”

“Well, that’s specific,” Antonia said. “Not.”

“What information? Whose authorities?” Lukas asked. “Is this Buddha human, or one of us? And why Sebastiani Labs?

“Espionage?” Bailey said with a shrug. “A privately-held company like Sebastiani Labs has its fingers in a lot of very lucrative pies. It doesn't compete for contracts, keeps out of the media...”

“Cooper’s thoughts, Cooper’s perceptions,” Jack muttered. “There’s no hard evidence here. Any IMs from this Buddha guy?”

Bailey accessed Wyatt’s instant message logs. “Nope, nothing.” She took another sip of her cooling coffee, and then set the cup down. Taking a deep breath, she clicked on the largest file—hers, or rather The Queen Bee’s—and scrolled to the bottom of the document to find the first entry. “Whoa.” Written on the day she’d been convicted, not that the son of a bitch had actually been at the courthouse to support her.

“He’s...careful with his language,” Jack noted as he read along. “Terse, factual. Nothing that’s quite incriminating.”

She scrolled up, skimming quickly. “Here’s the first reference to a gift...but he doesn’t say he left it.”

“The tone is changing,” Lukas observed.

He was right. Emotion was starting to creep in.

“Look.” Jack pointed at the screen. “San Francisco, a couple of years ago. A description of what you’re wearing, and his reaction to it. Same thing here. Miami. He seems to be fixated on a Hermès scarf.”

“That gorgeous scarf I found dropped on the floor in front of my hotel room door?” She’d given it to the concierge, thinking someone would surely return for such an exquisite lost item.

“He’d probably clued in to the fact that you were throwing wrapped gifts away without opening them,” Jack said.

“Now I feel extra-virtuous for turning it in to the Lost and Found, and not just keeping it.”

As they read, it became clear that Wyatt had followed her, and had hired others to follow her, for years.
That bastard.

“Whoa,” Antonio suddenly said.

“What?”

Antonia pointed to an entry. “This just turned into the Penthouse Forum.”

“What do
you
know about Penthouse Forum?” Lukas asked, frowning.

“Please.”

As brother and sister bickered, she read what Wyatt had written. A slice of real life, the first time they’d slept together...highly embellished and emphasizing his prowess, yes, but certain key details were uncomfortably accurate. “Dated last year? We weren’t...what the hell....” She looked at the date. “He wrote this during last year’s Black Hat conference.”

“Did you attend?” Antonia asked.

“No, but he did.” Her coffee tried to crawl up her throat.

“Keep scrolling,” Jack said.

She did as he asked. The entries came more frequently, were longer, and much more imaginative. She recognized a few real-world details—the time they’d sneaked into the computer lab for a quickie with a professor’s voice droning just outside the closed door; the hot kiss they’d shared on a Ferris wheel—but the entries clattered into straight-up fiction territory pretty darn quickly.

Lukas studied her. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Her skin wanted to crawl off her body, but she had to keep going. She needed every lick of data she could get her hands on before meeting with Wyatt in person.

“Rafe,” Antonia suddenly said.

“Huh?” Her head whipped to the door.

“Sorry. Here.” Antonia pointed to the monitor. “He mentions Rafe.”

She read the most recent entries, swallowing back a coffee-flavored sting. Wyatt’s erotic descriptions were...uncomfortably accurate. Ribbons of dread fluttered in her chest as understanding slowly dawned. “He has a camera at Rafe’s.”

Jack swore.

She whirled toward Lukas. “Please tell me you have a tail on Rafe.”

“We have a team out front at his building,” Lukas assured her, but he shifted his wastebasket to the other arm and quickly punched buttons on his mini. “Chico, status check on Rafe?” Lukas kept his gaze glued to hers as he waited. Listened. “Okay. Okay, thanks. Tell the team to stay on him.” He ended the call. “Rafe hasn't left his place since he got back from visiting you in the hospital earlier this week. His business manager visited him yesterday, and his studio lights have been burning ever since.”