Page 27 of Wired Strong

Chapter Twenty-Two

Sophie

Day 5

Sophie had just shuther eyes for a few moments, resting on her yoga mat, when the heavy metal door opening into the basement workroom at Security Solutions screeched open.

She woke with a start, and sat up too quickly. She lowered herself back down to her elbows as her head spun. Her eyes were gritty, and a knot tightened the muscles between her shoulder blades.

Sophie had spent the night in the workroom she had set up at Security Solutions, in order to maintain the flow of copying each of the ten hard drives that had landed on the long table she had set up. Each computer required several hours to copy, depending on how much information was on the unit, and she had only two write blocker devices. She’d set an alarm on her phone, and slept on her yoga mat, getting up every few hours to switch one of the copying devices to another computer as it completed the previous one. At nine a.m. the next day, she’d set up a time for Raveaux and Leede to come in for a meeting.

Somehow, it was nine a.m. of the next day.

Hermione Leede stood in the doorway next to a Security Solutions operative who’d escorted her to the basement. She looked perfectly put together in a tiny fuchsia pant suit. Her keen eyes, bright behind cat eye glasses, took in the scene at a glance. “Oh my! No one expected you to stay up all night working on this!”

Sophie sat up at a more reasonable speed, and stood slowly to her feet, flapping a hand to dismiss Leede’s security escort. “It was the most efficient way to get the work done.”

She had another reason for spending the night in the work room; she hadn’t wanted to see her father. She sent him a text that she was tied up with a case and spending the night at her office, working.

Avoidance was a good strategy when subterfuge was not one of her strengths.

Leede advanced into the work area as Sophie went to the phone on the corner of the table. She pressed the extension for Paula’s desk upstairs. “Paula, can you bring us some fresh tea and sandwiches from the food cart? Also, fresh scones if you can find them. I haven’t had breakfast yet, and Ms. Leede is here. She appreciates a good cup of tea and a scone.”

“Right away, Sophie!” As usual, Paula’s cheerful, positive response lifted Sophie’s spirits.

“I didn’t even need to tell you that I love a good scone,” Leede said, smiling. “Preferably with homemade preserves.”

“Anyone from England is likely to love those,” Sophie said. “It wasn’t much of a guess. I’m craving a warm pastry with butter, myself. Where is Raveaux?”

“I was in touch with him this morning. He said he was following up with something, and would be a little late.”

“Good.” Sophie combed her wild hair with her fingers. “I need to go to the restroom and freshen up, anyway.” She indicated the table, stacked high with computers. “I’ve been able to copy all the hard drives. I have two computers set up for us here to use for review, and the drives are already loaded, labeled with their owners. If you’d make yourself comfortable, I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Excellent.” Leede sat down and lifted her leather bag onto the table. “Take your time.”

Sophie hurried out, her bladder acting up per usual. She made it to the bathroom in time, and took a quick shower in the locker room. Wrapped in a towel, she twisted her riotous curls into Marcella’s favorite “FBI twist,” and secured the roll of hair with bobby pins. She then changed into a fresh Security Solutions black polo shirt and yoga pants, and put on a little makeup.

Hopefully, with all of that, Raveaux wouldn’t be able to tell she’d spent the night in the workroom. After this meeting, she’d go upstairs to her office and nap, for sure. She could feel exhaustion tugging at her bones like gravity.

Sophie returned to the basement, and smiled at the sight of Leede, already scanning the monitor of one of the computers. “I’m glad Raveaux’s not here yet. I wanted to have a few moments to get to know you a little better. He seems quite taken with you.”

“An interesting choice of words.” Leede lifted a well-groomed brow. Her intelligent eyes sparkled. “I’m rather taken with him, too.”

Sophie smiled. “I probably should have said he’s impressed with you. He told me a little about your tactics yesterday.”

“Setting a cat among the pigeons can sometimes flush out new game. While I had the three Kama`aina Schools’ bigwigs’ devices, I bugged them.” She handed Sophie a palm-sized communication pad. “I’m giving this to you, as a separate layer of protection for myself. You can track their conversations and locations. I hope you don’t mind me delegating this. You are subcontracted to me, so . . .”

“I see what you’re doing. Plausible deniability.” Sophie took the device.

“Yes. And I was up to my eyeballs in spreadsheets yesterday. The data is quite extensive, and I need to do more of that today. Would you monitor their phones for us when you aren’t working on the computers?”

“That’s a lot to keep track of for one person.” But Sophie took the device anyway. She felt a jolt of adrenaline and interest quickening her veins. She walked over to one of the rigs she had set up for herself.She could hook up the pad to a computer, run the verbal tracing through a voice-to-text program, and set her Data Analysis Victim Information Database program to monitoring for certain keywords related to their case.

Running the bugged phones’ conversations through DAVID would be much more efficient than monitoring long-winded personal talk from the owners of the various cell phones. It wasn’t worth explaining all of that to Hermione Leede, who wanted only to divest herself of a responsibility.

“I’ll see what I can do.” Sophie found a USB cable, plugged it into the pad, then hooked that device to the computer, downloading its contents as her fingers flew.

Everything around her faded as she dove into the task at hand.

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