Page 8 of A Not So Casual Christmas

Tessa blew a strand of hair off her forehead. “It would be easier to say what wasn’t new. It’s a complete overhaul. Out with the old and in with the new. It’s going to be larger to store more information and faster to sort it into several places.”

“Why?” Ben asked, leaning back in his chair. “And why now?”

“They paid a lot of money.” She shrugged. “Ours is not the reason why.”

“What kind of data are they storing?”

“Client information mostly. Credit cards. Shopping cart purchases and a history of what they’re looking for on the site. Standard stuff.”

“Tracking software?”

“The usual. All within FCC guidelines,” Tessa said defensively.

Ben held up a hand. “Are we in?”

“This is the test environment.”

“Allow me?” he asked, holding up a thumb drive.

Tessa held his gaze. His eyes were still the frank and honest brown that she had stared into for most of her life. If he was lying to her, if this was just a way to hack into Santos’ system, it would destroy her.

“I promise to protect you. If Starrett is clean, he and you have nothing to worry about.”

“I want to know what you find,” she said.

“When I can tell you, I will.”

Reluctantly, she rolled her chair back and gestured for him to do what he wanted. Although if he thought he would be able to copy all of the structure on that little thumb drive, he was going to be disappointed.

Ben took out his cell phone and dialed. “It’s in.”

Tessa watched in shock as someone, hopefully someone in Langley and not a hacker in the Philippines, remotely take control of her computer and then the screens and code flew faster than she could track.

“What’s happening?”

Ben held up a finger as he listened to a voice on the other end of the phone. “Can you log into Santos’ mainframe.”

“Sure,” she said. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”

Pushing him out of the way, she logged in. Well, she tried to.

“Come on,” Tess said and entered her password again. Nope. “What the hell?”

“We have to get out of here,” Ben said, grabbing her by the elbow and hauling her up. He slid his phone into his pants pocket.

“What’s going on here? Why won’t my password work?” Tess said.

Ben dragged her out of the office. She barely had time to grab her purse.

Wilson, carrying her jacket over his arm, was in the hallway. “There you are,” he said.

“Run.” Ben pushed her behind him and charged Wilson.

“Run?” she asked. “From what?”

But then Wilson dropped her jacket and she saw that he had been concealing a pistol under it. She screamed. Ben leapt at him in a flying tackle and the gun went off. Wilson hit the floor hard with the full weight of Ben’s linebacker body on top of him. For a moment, no one moved. Then, Tessa bolted over to them. Wilson was out cold. Ben groaned. She flipped him over and screamed again at the blood.

No. Not like this.

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