Page 6 of Mountain Security

She shook her head. “No. I didn’t want to alert whoever took the files, in case they were still inside the system.”

“Those files … what did they contain exactly? Or rather, how sensitive is the material?”

She decided straightforward was the way to go. “Very sensitive. The folder contained all major construction proposals submitted to the mayor’s office for approval in the last eighteen months, but only seven proposals were copied, which happen to be the largest ones. And they didn’t just copy the proposals themselves—which would be bad enough—but also the confidential deliberations from the different committee members and from the Board, and the reasons why said projects were approved or rejected. If that information comes out …”

The mayor’s political career would be over.

My career would be over.

Alex shook his head. “I understand. How many projects were in the folder originally?”

“About a hundred projects, I imagine, give or take a few. But the ones taken are the most … significant … proposals from the town’s perspective.”

“Why would anyone want those projects?”

The mayor shook his head solemnly. “To get rid of me, of course. Elections are next May. That’s only six months away.”

“You suspect your political rivals?” Alex asked. “If so, I don’t feel I’m the right person to—“

“That’s not why we brought you in,” Yvette interrupted quickly, before Pierre could go off on his conspiracy theory spiel. “We need to know who did this, and we need help figuring out whether they took anything else.”

“And you don’t want your IT involved, because …“

“The town hall’s IT team is large. We would like to avoid a political scandal, if at all possible. Keep things close to our chest. And figure out who did this.”

Alex sighed. He had the look of someone agreeing to a root canal. For a moment, she almost felt sorry for him.

“Let me take a look, see what I find. I’m going to need access to the computers and the network.”

“Whatever you need, Yvette will make sure you have it,” her boss said quickly, flashing his signature smile. “But work quickly and quietly, please. We need answers yesterday.”

* * *

Alex

Alex could see why they made a good team.

The mayor was one of those charismatic politicians, with an easy smile and an innate ability to make one feel like whatever they were saying was the most interesting thing he’d heard all week. He was also clearly a big-picture-don’t-bother-me-with-details kind of guy.

Yvette Legrand brought her keen intelligence, her quiet intensity and her ability to get things done to the partnership. Alex was used to people coming up to him with IT troubles, so he was used to digging through the mire of people’s memory to get to thewhat really happened. But Yvette’s story had been clearly woven from A to Z, and she’d been careful to differentiate between facts and opinions, too.

He wondered if Yvette had a boyfriend. She didn’t wear a ring. He’d checked. He couldn’t help himself. Something about Yvette made him wonder—

Stop it.

Even if she doesn’t have a boyfriend, asking her out would be a big mistake.

A potentially career-ending mistake.

Just look at their computers, figure out what you can, and get out.

The mayor shook Alex’s hand, pressing his left hand over their handshake, as if sealing the deal.

“Thank you, Alex,” he said, his brown eyes serious, before releasing Alex’s hand. And even though Alex knew this was just a politician being a politician, it was difficult not to be taken in by the man’s charm.

“Let’s go to the office,” Yvette said after the mayor had left. “The team’s out this afternoon, so nobody will bother us.”

The maître d’ helped Yvette into a fashionable black woolen coat with golden buttons and matching details on the cuffs. Like her heels, it was beautiful, and wholly inappropriate for the weather outside. Alex hoped her car was parked right by the entrance.

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