Page 19 of Falling Fast

He was right behind her, a hound on the hunt, eyeing Charlie’s ass like she was a juicy fillet he wanted to devour. “Believe me, it’s already been money well spent.”

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Charlie was acutely aware of Baker’s avid stare as she continued to work at his desk. He was watching her every move from his seat a few feet away, but his attention was hardly ever on what she was doing.

Everything was going well, even more smoothly than she’d hoped, but the way he watched her was making her skin crawl, a continual warning buzz at the base of her skull. Beneath the expensive suit and smooth manners, the man was a predator. And she’d just turned him down in front of another man. That had to prick his sizeable ego.

She’d known coming into this that Baker was a womanizer and that she couldn’t let him get to her. She had to be friendly and interesting enough to get him to want more time with her, but not so much that she invited his advances or that he expected her to go to bed with him. Everything the agency had told her about him suggested he’d make a pass if he found her interesting enough.

Risking a glance out into the hall, she met Jamie’s gaze. The subtle nod he gave her helped ease the hot ball of tension in her stomach.

Keep going. You’re almost there.

All she had to do was keep cool, maintain her composure and resist Baker’s…charms. Not hard to do, based on what she’d seen thus far. The man had an overinflated opinion of himself and his money.

He’d already logged into the computer before she’d ever stepped foot into his office, so she hadn’t had a chance to see what kind of security or encryption he had on it. Though it had to be decent. “You said this first started last week?” she asked him.

“Sunday night, to be exact. One of my employees was in the office finishing up some work and called to alert me.”

She nodded but didn’t answer, busy typing commands as she assessed the extent of the virus. The one Spider had designed and Charlie’s team had uploaded into his system. From what she was seeing so far, Charlie was impressed. The woman had definite style.

Baker wasn’t a techie kind of guy, so when she pulled up another screen of intricate code and began to read, she knew he had no clue what he was looking at. “I’m going to go through this line by line to see if I can isolate the virus,” she told him.

“Sure, go ahead. It’s a pleasure to watch you work.”

Eww.She’d heard some gross lines in her day, but coming from him while he sat two feet away staring at her boobs and face, it made her want to go have another shower.

It helped that Jamie had a clear visual of her from where he was positioned. If Baker tried anything and she couldn’t deflect or stop it, Jamie would intervene. And what a stroke of luck, him seeing the Enfield on the wall. What she’d told Baker was true, mostly. Except that her great-great-grandfather had used a Springfield rather than an Enfield.

“Who does your programming for you?” she asked Baker a few minutes later.

“My IT department, along with the occasional outsource. Why, do you think one of them planted this?” He leaned forward, frowning.

“Can’t rule it out.” She kept her eyes on the screen.

“I’ve already got people investigating them.”

Not surprising. “Good. And while you’re at it, you might want to fire them and get a new IT department.”

Baker blinked at her in surprise. “Why, what’s wrong?”

She gestured to the screen. “There’s a back door written into the original code of your operating program that allowed the hacker access to your system. It was subtle, but smart IT people should have found it. And the hacker wasn’t able to hack your files, but instead input a nasty little virus out of spite. You need someone more vigilant, who’s up on the latest trends if you want to stay ahead of hackers.”

His brown eyes turned from thoughtful to slumberous as he regarded her. “Know anyone who might be interested?” he murmured.

The words were so loaded with innuendo she almost stopped typing. With effort, she stayed focused on her task. “I might.”

He leaned back in his chair, still watching her. “So, Charlie. How did a pretty little thing like you become one of the best hackers in the world?”

She shrugged and kept typing, isolating bands of code for her to look at in more detail. “I’ve always liked computers and what they can do. Started out as a hobby, then I found the dark net as a teenager and haven’t looked back. And that reminds me.” She stopped and made herself meet his eyes. “Have you been looking in places you shouldn’t with this system?”

One side of his mouth tipped upward, as though her question amused him. “No. I’m a very careful man.”

“That’s good.” She resumed working. “Had to ask, since that’s how you found me. Or rather, our contact did. And once I’m through here, I have no desire to wind up being interrogated by the Feds for helping you cover up something illegal.”

“You don’t need to worry about that. You won’t find anything on this system that isn’t entirely clean.”

Yeah, we’ll see about that, won’t we?

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