Page 53 of Business or Pleasure

Bloody hell.

I leaned on the counter and began to read more carefully. One page held a list of names of people. Investors. Board members to organizations, some I recognized. Potential clients. The next page held specs. Not blueprints, but information about various systems used by the security account. Statistics about them. Marked with different color highlighters.

What the hell was this?

The third page offered something of an explanation.

It was another list, but this one with handwritten notes. A messy, sprawling hand, difficult to read, but I could make out enough to know that it was bad.

…security codes…systems in what buildings…noted flaws…blind spots…love dad

Dad.

We’d talked about our families, but she always said that she didn’t have a father. I’d assumed that meant she didn’t know who he was or at the very least wasn’t in contact with him. But this sounded as if she’d talked to him, and recently too.

And it seemed that the things she’d been talking about would have been covered under MIRI’s strict NDA policy. I had many questions, but the leading one was this: why was Harlee’s father asking for information from her about Bulwark Security Systems?

And then the final page, a printed magazine article, which didn’t seem to fit at all, but the headline grabbed my attention.

Father / Daughter Con Team

I frowned and kept reading.

Convicted con man Franklin Cook knows he hasn’t always been the best father, but he swears he had his daughter’s best interest at heart when he taught her to gamble as a young child. “After Harlee’s mother died, I couldn’t give her what she needed, not without breaking the rules sometimes.” Except Cook didn’t just break the rules. He brought his daughter into his schemes, a decision that eventually landed the fifteen year-old in court on theft charges. While she only received probation for that, an incident at the foster home she was sent to resulted in the teenager spending the next two and a half years in a residential unit for troubled youth. When asked if he regretted leaving Harlee behind to face the charges alone, Cook swears he always meant to come back for her. Unfortunately, shortly after his daughter’s second arrest, Cook himself was apprehended during–

“I don’t mind if you want to wander around naked.” Harlee sounded amused. “I like a good show. Just don’t sit on my furniture bare-assed.”

I looked up from the papers in my hand to find her smiling at me. She’d pulled on a short purple robe, but I didn’t think she was wearing anything underneath it. Under other circumstances, I might’ve wanted to take advantage of it. Pick her up and set her on the counter, spread her open, and go down on her until she begged me to fuck her.

Considering what I’d just discovered, however, I wasn’t in the mood for sex.

“What’s that?” she asked, nodding toward the papers.

“You tell me.” I set them on the counter. “Take a look while I put some clothes on.”

When I came back into the kitchen a couple minutes later, she was frowning at the papers. “What the hell are these? Where did you get them?”

Ignoring her questions, I asked my own. “Am I correct in assuming that those files belong to MIRI?”

“They do, but where did they come from?”

“MIRI, where else?” I snapped.

She gave me a disgusted look. “I’m not an idiot. Who got them, and how did they get here?”

“Your father’s note gives a big fucking clue.” My control over my voice slipped as I gestured toward the handwritten paper.

“My father?”

I really wished I could believe the confusion on her face. “He signed it ‘love dad.’”

She laughed, a harsh sound with little joy in it. “Trust me, if you knew anything about Franklin Cook, you’d know that’d be the last thing he’d ever say to me.” The color drained from her face as she looked at mine. “Seriously, Baylen, the man’s a criminal. He only ever contacts me when he’s feeling guilty, or he wants something.”

Her words didn’t exactly make me think better of the situation. “Aren’t you one too? A criminal, I mean. That article says you were arrested. Twice.”

The color drained from her face as she picked up the page. “I was.” She set her jaw. “But that doesn’t tell the whole story.”

“What’s the whole story?” I didn’t think it would make a difference, but I still asked.

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