Page 37 of No Good Deed

He and Marcus exchanged a grim look. “I think it’s exactly what someone is looking for.”

* * *

Piper flipped through the spreadsheet pages again. They were all similar and looked like financial ledgers but without the usual column headers.

The cells in the lefthand column held combinations of letters and numbers but no words. The pages were labeled with One, Two, and so on. She pointed at the second and third columns. “Looks like these two combined are month and date, but there are no years. Could each spreadsheet be a different year? Do you think this is a blackmail list? Someone skimming from a bunch of companies? If someone has made so many attempts to get this information back, it has to be something illegal.”

Marcus nodded. “Probably. Or some private R&D, but it doesn’t look like that kind of data to me.”

Troy agreed. “I don’t have a clue, although your instincts are probably right.” He turned to Piper. “Who could have put this in with your other USBs?”

Piper sat back and thought about that. “Anyone in the office would have had easy access. I kept the Cloud Gate container on my desk.”

Marcus tapped the USB. “Are all of your USBs the same style? How many did you have?”

“A lot. I got them at an event at the Plaza back in Chicago. All kinds of tourist booths were set up. I happened to be at the one in front of the Cloud Gate when one of the people manning the booth realized that one batch of their USBs had a misprint on them. They were supposed to give them away as souvenirs to tourists, but this batch had Cloud Goat printed on them instead of Cloud Gate. I thought it was funny, and the volunteer gave me one of the misprinted boxes. I think there were about fifty in the box.”

Troy tapped his finger on the table. “And you didn’t keep all of them?”

She shook her head. “No. I thought it was cute, so I kept a bunch for myself and set the rest in my Cloud Gate tin on my desk and let people know they were free to grab some for themselves.”

Marcus moved to his desk and grabbed a notebook. “Did you give any away to other friends or neighbors?”

Good question. “I don’t think so. I’ve had them for ages. The event was over a year ago, but I don’t recall sharing them outside the office.”

Marcus huffed out a breath. “That leaves us with a lot of potential connections. How many people worked in your office area?”

“Around thirty.” And one of those thirty had tried to hurt her? Had broken into her apartment? Crashed into the car she was driving?

Panic had her heart thundering against her ribs. Until now, she hadn’t truly believed the incidents were anything more than a random string of bad luck. This USB changed everything.

Someone she knew had tried to get this USB back, and when that hadn’t worked, they’d tried to hurt her. Had they been hoping she’d been carrying the USB? She likely had been, as she generally brought the Goat everywhere.

“Why would I have this? And why wouldn’t they just ask for it back?”

Troy placed his hand on her shoulder and tugged her in for a hug. “Someone was probably hiding whatever information this is. Hiding it in plain sight with a plan to retrieve it later. But before they could get it, you picked it up and put it in with your other USBs.”

Marcus pulled on a pair of gloves and tapped the USB. “There are a couple of things I want to do here with your permission. First, I’d like to copy the files to other USBs. Then, I’d like to take possession of this one as evidence. I’m hoping it doesn’t have a virus or malware attached to it. If it does, my laptop is already compromised.”

She hadn’t thought of that. “I’m so sorry.”

The deputy smiled at her. “Nothing to be sorry about. Not your fault, even if there is something on it. I have my doubts because it didn’t have any encryption to get into the files in the first place. I’m guessing it was an impulsive decision to put this one in with your others. Makes me think someone was using your office for after-hours visits about something illegal. Whatever this is, he didn’t want it found, but he wanted it easily accessible later.”

“He?”

Marcus nodded. “A man mugged you. A man accosted you at the B&B. I’m going to guess this is all connected to him.”

Troy tightened his grip, and she leaned into his comfort. Piper worked with a lot of men. There were definitely women in her field, but the balance was heavily skewed toward males. There were also clients who came freely into the office. Friends. Family members. Staff from other offices in the building. Cleaning staff. The list was huge. Yet she couldn’t imagine any of them trying to run her off the road.

“Piper?” Troy’s voice broke into her musings and she shook her head to clear it.

“Sorry. I missed that.”

He smiled and squeezed her shoulder. “No problem. Marcus wants to know if all of that is okay with you. Can he take the USB and contact the police department from your old suburb?”

She nodded. “Of course. I was just trying to think through all the men I’ve worked with. I don’t know them all well, but I can’t imagine anyone trying to hurt me.”

Marcus studied her. “What about breaking into your place or the office?”

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