Red Hourglass (11 page)

I was dying to slice some flesh, but there was work to do. I ran my fingers over the stack of mail and papers in my in-box. I replied to any correspondence I could, put aside anything I thought Conan should see, and filed the rest.

When I was finished, I thumbed through Wilmar’s internal magazine. There was a short piece on Conan. He was wearing a suit in the photo and he looked absolutely scrumptious. The article said he was a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and he had an MBA from Columbia University.
Impressive
. I scanned the article and saved a copy on my encrypted flash drive so I could upload it to the White Queen’s Wilmar database.

Conan was definitely gorgeous and charismatic, if not always charming. I wasn’t thrilled about having to get his lunch, but I hadn’t seen the side of him that Peter warned me about.

I wondered what it would be like to be in a real relationship. I’d never even been on a real date with a man. All the dates I’d had since I graduated were fake. I only went out with men to get things from them so I could complete my missions.
Did Conan’s last secretary quit or was she fired
?
Was he sleeping with her
?
Did he break her heart
?

The phone rang and snapped me back to reality.
I have a job to do. I’m here to help the White Queen stop Wilmar’s expansion from destroying the lives of ordinary people
.

“Conan Casey’s office, this is Scarlet. How may I help you?”

* * *

Christophe began appearing in the security department a few times a day. He usually had something in his hands, and he was always looking for someone who wasn’t in the office. He made of point of walking by my desk even though it was in the far corner of the enormous room, and he often looked over his shoulder at me before he left.

I decided he must’ve been bored due to the lack of women in the IT department, and I took his obvious interest as a compliment. I started returning his glances and smiling at him. I didn’t mind playing with men to keep myself entertained.

“So, do you always get lunch for your boss?” Christophe asked, looking at the white paper bag on my desk.

“Yeah, but that’s mine.”

“Conan is one lucky dude.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he has a pretty secretary who brings him lunch every day.”

“I’m sure you can get yourself a nice office and a secretary if you work hard.”

“Nah.” Christophe shook his head. “That’s not my thing. I don’t like being stuck anywhere for too long. I prefer my freedom.”

Conan walked up to my desk as Christophe was talking to me.

“Did you get my lunch?” Conan asked, giving Christophe a stern glance.

“Yes. It’s on your desk.”

“Thanks.” Conan went into his office and shut the door with a bang.

“Um, Scarlet,” Christophe said, fidgeting from side to side. “Do you want to get a pizza or something after work?”

“Sounds good.” He was sort of awkward, but I didn’t care. I needed something to break up my routine, and having a white hat genius pal could be very useful. Anyway, he was around my age and his faint French accent was cute.

“That’s great.” He smiled and gave me two thumbs up.

Conan popped his head out of his office. “Christophe, have you emailed me the information on the new recruits that I asked you for
yesterday
?”

“No sir. I’ll email it over right away.”

“Make sure you do.” Conan stepped back into his office and closed the door.

“I’ll be back later.” Christophe shuffled out of the department with a big grin on his lips.

Conan stormed out of his office and tossed the white paper bag with his lunch on my desk. “This is all wrong!”

Oh shit
! My stomach dropped and the worker rats looked over their cubicles at me.

“I wanted a tall black coffee and you got me a short white. And you should know by now that I DON’T LIKE TOMATOES. So why in the hell are there tomatoes on my sandwich?” He threw the bag into the trash can.

How did I make such a stupid mistake
?
Couldn’t he simply remove the tomatoes
?
I’d throttle him with my heels if I wasn’t on a mission
. I took a breath and composed myself.

“I’m sorry. It won’t happen again,” I said, trying to conceal my disgust.

“If you want to keep your job, it certainly will not happen again.” He sneered down at me with his piercing gray eyes. “Now, Ms. Walters, I believe you have yet to get me my lunch.”

“Yes sir.” I stood up and grabbed my handbag.

“Be quick about it,” he said as he returned to his office and slammed the door.

I took the elevator down to the lobby and sprinted across the street to the sandwich shop.
No tomatoes, no tomatoes
.
No wonder everyone scrambles around when he issues orders, but I’m not here to be his bitch.
I hate this stupid secretary job.
It took me fifteen minutes to get back with his food.

“Here’s your lunch.” My clammy hand trembled as I placed the food on his desk. I didn’t like making stupid mistakes, but I hated being yelled at and threatened. It reminded me of my stepfather. I wanted to cry—out of anger more than anything.

Conan opened the paper bag, took out the cup, and drank a gulp of coffee. “So far so good,” he said as he glared at me with his wolf-like eyes.

I had to look away from his penetrating gaze. He reached into the bag for his sandwich and peeled away the wrapper to examine its contents.

“No tomatoes. Good girl.” He took a bite of his sandwich.

His praise was a relief. But it still felt like he was chewing me up, not the sandwich. I couldn’t care less what the picky jerk thought, but I had to please him if I wanted to keep the job and finish my mission.

“Get to work.”

“Yes sir.”

* * *

Christophe and I walked to a pizza place after work. There was a huge wood-fired oven in the middle of the restaurant. The cooks were using large wooden paddles to get the pizzas in and out of the oven.

The smell of cheese, tomatoes, and garlic wafted through the restaurant. I couldn’t eat my lunch after what happened with Conan, but the delicious aromas restored my appetite.

We sat down and ordered a large pepperoni pizza and two Cokes. The waiter was back with our drinks in no time.

“How did you get into Wilmar?” I asked.

“I won the Hackathon in New York two years ago. Wilmar recruited me after that,” he said, chewing on his straw.

“Did you go to college?”

“Nah. College is for losers. I’ve sort of hacked my way through life. How about you Scarlet? How did you end up in Wilmar?”

“I saw the job on the website and applied. They didn’t come looking for me.”

“Well I’m glad you’re with us now.” He smiled and lifted his glass. “
Santé
,” he said, lightly clinking his glass against mine. “Bottoms up.”

“But the pizza isn’t here yet,” I said, looking down. I wondered what he’d think if he knew I wasn’t really with Wilmar.

“They have free refills on Coke. Drink up.”

“Oh … that’s a good deal.” I drank up.

The waiter refilled our glasses and then delivered a huge, steaming pepperoni pizza straight from the oven to our table. I lifted a slice off the tray, pulling the strings of melted cheese up with my fingers. The pizza was delicious.

“I think I could eat pizza and drink Coke every day,” I said.

“Me too.” Christophe munched on his slice, splattering pizza sauce all over the table.

Being around Christophe was easy. I was growing more comfortable with him and the conversation flowed. We talked about cool places to see in New York and cheap places to eat around the office.

“Speaking of the office, you know not to use your work email for anything personal, right?” he said. His chin was covered in tomato sauce.

“Yeah. Conan told me that my first day.” I dabbed my napkin to my mouth, hoping he’d get the hint.

“I’m not talking about company policy,” he said as he wiped his chin.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean Wilmar has a record of everything you do on their computers. If you break the rules, they’ll eventually catch you.”

“Can you actually read our emails?”

“Of course. I can see every keystroke, every file, everything on every computer. And our security passes aren’t just about security. They tell the company when we get to work, when we go to lunch, when we get back, and when we knock off for the day. But don’t freak out, Wilmar isn’t a totally evil big brother corporation. The people in accounting monitor arrival and departure times for payroll, but the company has to suspect you of wrongdoing before they go digging around your computer.”

“Well that’s a relief.” I was thinking of the article from the company magazine I’d scanned and saved. “Are the security passes used to track us around the building?”

“No. They only have RFID chips, no GPS tracking,” he said. “But they can find you if you’re in one of the public areas where they have CCTV cameras … or by tracking your cell phone.”

“What about other CCTV cameras around the city? Can you see what’s on those?”

“Wilmar doesn’t ever
officially
ask me to do that sort of thing, but I haven’t met a network or system I couldn’t hack yet. So if it’s on a network, probably.”

“Wow. What else can you do with your white hat genius skills?” I was impressed. Vanus was in charge of IT for the White Queen. I finally understood why the rest of the agents weren’t trained up in hacking—it made sense that the White Queen would only trust her daughter with those skills.

“Well, I’ve built a lot of safeguards into the Wilmar system. So we’re pretty secure against cyberattacks and hacking. But that’s not what you asked.” Christophe finished his last bite of pizza and took a sip of Coke. “If a device is connected to a computer network I can take control of it. Like in our building, I could turn off all the electricity or plumbing anytime I wanted to.”

“Eww, don’t do it!” I laughed. “Not being able to flush the toilets would be disgusting, and it would suck being stuck on the sixtieth floor with no electricity.”

“Don’t worry. I’m not about to get myself fired. But if I ever decide to quit, well now that’s a different story.” He playfully mussed my hair.

“You’re such a joker.” I giggled as I swiped away his hand. I felt comfortable with him, but not comfortable enough for him to touch me. “So I can count on you for all my hacking needs in the future?”

“You can count on me for anything anytime Scarlet. Will you let me escort you home after dessert … so I know you get there safely?”

“That’s very thoughtful of you. Sure.”

Christophe dropped me home in a taxi and I ran upstairs. I locked the door behind me and closed all the curtains.

I hadn’t entered any information in the White Queen’s Wilmar database yet. I got my notebook and flash drive out of my handbag and sat down at my desk. I opened the laptop and pressed SHIFT+ALT+F3 to access the log in screen. Then I touched my right thumb to the fingerprint reader and keyed in my security code. A question appeared on the screen: “How many swimming pools are at the Academy?” If an agent was being forced to access the database by someone else, we had to answer “01.” That would cause the laptop to pull up a fake database and send an SOS to the White Queen. I entered “3.” The system was satisfied and the real database appeared.

I made entries for all the Wilmar people I’d met. I put as much information as I could in predefined fields—name, age, marital status, position, time with the company, outside affiliations—and there was an extra field for files and notes. I entered the information I had about Conan, along with a note about his unreasonable temper and the fear he instilled in others. Then I uploaded the article about him from the company magazine. I also added notes to the general Wilmar entry, based on what I’d learned from Christophe.

Let the Games Begin

Conan was waiting at my desk when I arrived for work.

“Do you play poker?” he asked.

“It’s been a while.” My cheeks flushed as soon as I spoke.
Damn it.
I remembered my game of strip poker with Mr. Cheap Poker. “I know how to play … but I’m not very good,” I lied.

“I like to play with everyone in my department,” he said as he glanced down at my short skirt.

“What kind of poker?” I felt blood rushing through my legs. I sat down and began fiddling with papers on my desk.

“Not strip poker, if that’s what you’re thinking.” He chuckled and let his eyes rest on my cleavage for a moment.

“Of course not.” I blushed and squirmed in my chair. My little girl had a mind of her own.

“Texas Hold’em will have to do you. I’ve booked a room at a private club tomorrow night. Make yourself available.”

“Yes sir.” I smiled.

“I’ll be out of the office for the rest of the day. Call my security detail and tell them to meet me in the garage.”

“Okay. Have a nice day,” I said as I picked up the phone.

After I made the call I ran into the bathroom and splashed cold water over my face. I leaned on the bathroom sink and stared at myself in the mirror.
You’re on a mission. Yes he’s very hot, but it’s just business
…
not a kinky date.
Control yourself
!

* * *

Conan picked me up in a limo the next evening. The chrome handle glistened like a blade.

“Is this yours?” I asked as he opened the door.

“It’s one of Wilmar’s bulletproof limos,” he said proudly. “My guys are in the car behind us.”

“I see.” I slid into the backseat and caressed the silky beige leather.

Conan was wearing a black suit with a red tie, and there was a long strip of tiny buttons down the front of his white shirt. We arrived at the Tipping Club at eight on the dot.

“Good Evening Mr. Casey,” said the bouncer, opening the door.

Conan went to the reception desk and I stood behind him in the dark foyer.

“I’ve reserved a private room,” he said as he signed in and showed his membership card.

“Nice to see you again Mr. Casey.” The sexy blond smiled and handed him a key.