LITMIR.BIZ

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herself than to trust her instincts, which had proved faulty in the worst possible way.

      Nicole straightened and ran her hand over the beautiful crystal decanters containing alcohol Ryan had served her on her last visit. She’d pretended to drink, letting him run his hands over her silk dress. To a point. Then she’d laughed and stepped away, flirting with him enough to gain a moderate level of trust.

      She snorted softly. Men could be so pathetically predictable.

      A sound from the front office alerted her to someone else’s presence.

      Nicole shot a glance at the video monitor, still dark, the soft whir of the building’s central air the only sound in an otherwise quiet office.

      The outer office door closed with a sharp click.

      Nicole dove for a closet, sliding in behind one of Ryan’s spare suits hanging beside a crisply starched white shirt.

      Lights blinked on, filtering through the gap she’d left in the door to allow her to peer out. Her hand went to the lipstick tube of pepper spray she’d placed in her pocket before starting out on her mission.

      The carpet muffled any footsteps as Nicole strained to hear or to see the progress of the person in Ryan’s office. Then she saw a man in a suit pass by. Crap. If he noticed the miniature flash drive poking out of the side of his monitor, he could disrupt the password hacking module and the download. That would make him aware that he might not be alone in the room.

      Nicole held her breath, waiting for any indication of discovery.

      The buzzing sound of a cell phone rang out in the silence.

      “Ryan,” he answered. After a moment he said, “I know. I’m here to download the data now. Yes, I understand how important it is.”

      While Ryan talked on the phone, Nicole eased the zipper down on her coveralls and slipped the garment over her shoulders, letting it drop around her ankles. She stepped out of it and smoothed her hands over the snug-fitting, black leather pants that molded to her body and the low-cut leather corset she’d worn beneath the coveralls. Pushing the hat from her head, she fluffed her hair and peered around the closet door at the man seated at his desk, his back to the monitor, and staring out the windows.

      “Nobody will trace back to you. I guarantee it.” He paused again. “I know the consequences,” he said, his voice tight, strained.

      Nicole eased out of the closet and crossed the floor. The man glanced up at that moment, catching her movement reflected off the darkened windows. Her gaze met Ryan’s and she gave him a sensual smile and a wink.

      Ryan spun in his chair, his hand still holding the phone to his ear. “Look, I have to go.” He hit the end button and pushed to his feet. “What the hell are you doing in here? This room is off-limits.”

      Nicole shrugged, her breasts pushed higher in the corset, the effect almost working on Ryan. For a moment his gaze shifted to the rounded swells, then his jaw tightened and he glared at her. “How the hell did you get in here?”

      She crossed the room to him. “The door was unlocked.” Her brows rose, begging him to argue the point. “I’d hoped to find you here.” Her hand curled around the lipstick tube of pepper spray. All she had to do was to get close enough to spray him in the eyes. He’d be effectively incapacitated.

      “You shouldn’t be here.” He reached for the phone on his desk at the same time she raised the pepper spray and shot him dead on in the face.

      Ryan screamed and grabbed for his eyes. “You bitch!” He staggered backward, tripped over his chair and landed on his back.

      Nicole pulled a zip tie out of her back pocket, planted a foot on his side, rolled him onto his belly, and yanked his wrist behind his back, pushing it up between his shoulder blades.

      “You won’t get away with this. Argh! Why’d you have to use pepper spray? It’s burning my eyes.”

      “Don’t worry. It won’t leave a scar on your lying, cheating face.” With her knee in his back, she dragged his other arm up and secured the wrists together behind his back. Then with smooth precision, she secured his ankles with another zip tie. A soft ping indicated the password hacker had done its duty and the download had begun.

      “What are you doing?” he demanded. “You’re trespassing in my office. I could have you arrested and thrown in jail.”

      “Yeah, if you could get up.” She sat behind his desk, switched on the monitor and checked the status of the downloading software. The status bar indicated already 40 percent complete. Just a little longer.

      “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

      “Oh, I think I do,” she said.

      “The people I work for won’t let you get away with this.”

      “They won’t have a choice, now, will they?”

      “They’ll come after you. Kill you.” He struggled against the bindings. “Damn, this is burning my eyes!”

      “It’ll only last a couple hours.”

      “You can’t leave me like this.”

      “Oh, I think I can.”

      “You’ll never get out of the building.”

      “Wanna bet?” The progress bar indicated 88 percent complete. Hurry, damn it.

      “Any data on that computer is proprietary and fully encrypted. It’ll do you no good.”

      “We’ll see.”

      “Help!” Ryan yelled.

      Great. With a calm she wasn’t exactly feeling, she pulled the tight roll of duct tape from her pocket, unrolled it and bent to slap it over Ryan’s mouth. “There, now. Let’s not disturb the cleaning staff. They have enough filth to clean.”

      He grunted and jerked, trying to tear into her.

      Nicole glanced at the monitor. The status bar filled and disappeared, displaying the message Download Complete.

      Now the fun began. With Ryan trussed up like the pig he was, it wouldn’t be long before the security staff got smart.

      Tucking the flash drive in the pocket of her black pants, she nudged Ryan with her toe. “I’ll be seeing you in court.”

      The man grunted and rolled toward her in an attempt to stop her.

      She grabbed the white coverall, slipped her legs inside, crammed her hair into a messy bun and shoved it into the cap. She grabbed a straight-back chair from the front office and dragged it into Ryan’s office. Leaning it against the back of the door, she then exited the outer door of Ryan’s office, the chair leaning against the back of the door dropping to the floor behind it. She tried to open the door, but the chair legs dug into the carpet on the other side, jamming it. It would take time to get to Brandon Ryan. The time she’d need to get out of the building.

      As she stepped into the hallway, the elevator car dinged. Before the door could slide open, Nicole ran for the fire alarm and jerked the handle down, setting off a screeching alarm and blinking lights marking the exits.

      Two security guards leaped out of the elevator car and pulled guns on her. “Halt!”

      “Oh, thank God!” She dropped to her knees on the hallway floor. “Mr. Ryan is in his office. There’s something wrong with him. I didn’t know what to do. Please help him. Please. And hurry.”

      The two guards ran past her and through the open outer office door. As soon as they were through, Nicole rose to her feet, pulled a pocketknife out of her pocket, closed the outer door and stabbed the keyboard. Wires shorted out and sparks flew.

      Wasting no more time, she ran to the stairwell and down all twenty-two floors of the building to the ground level and exited into the service area.

      The night shift

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