Page 75 of Enticing the Fixer

While I’m running the program, I search for the first penny transaction siphoned into the fake account.

Ding.My cell phone pings, dragging my attention from screen after screen as the program scans all the data.

Hunter: What’s up?

Me: Be ready.

Hunter: Gotcha. Did you contact everyone?

Me: Yes. I’ll let you know if we need to activate.

Hunter: Anytime.

After I ended my call with Truman, I sent a group message to my friends and one to my brother. I don’t know what we’re up against, but I’ll be prepared. They don’t call me the fixer for nothing.

What am I missing? Who wants the company? And what are they willing to do to get it?

A hostile takeover? It wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe it’s time to dig a little deeper into the board members. I click on the mouse and stop. Nope. Not looking anything up here. I don’t know who else is monitoring my computer.

I swipe my phone screen open and spend the next thirty minutes deep diving each of the board members until I know more about them than they do. I know who buys suits at the outlet store and who really has erectile dysfunction.

****

Twenty Minutes Later

I have the precise time the virus was uploaded. Now to match it to whoever went into Kinsley’s office at that same time.

Keith passes by my office window and nods. I return his greeting, but before I get back to the task at hand, Carla stands outside her door with her boobs pressed together, causing everything above her cup lines to pop up above her shirt. The woman is depressing and desperate.

But not so depressing that I feel sorry for her or feed into her delusions that we’re poised for a hot office rendezvous. There’s only one woman that fits the bill for that.

I frown at the screen. There’s no movement in or out of Kinsley’s office for the 15 minutes before or after the program was uploaded. I click the mouse and increase the speed.

Kinsley returned to her office 30 minutes after the program was installed.

When did she leave? I rewind to a previous clip. Nothing. Keep going backward. I skip back to one hour before the virus upload. Kinsley goes into her office ten minutes later after having a brief chat with Valeria. But no one else shows up on the video. What’s going on? How did someone upload the software and not show up on the screen?

Again, 30 minutes after the program was installed, Kinsley returns to Valeria’s office, shakes her head at something her assistant says, and unlocks the door to her interior office.

I skip backward to when she goes into her office the first time and watch at triple speed until she returns 30 minutes after the virus is uploaded.

She never left but returned twice? There’s no second entrance to her office, so what did she do? Shimmy down the drainpipe? Not hardly. It’s on the 10thfloor.

Someone messed with the surveillance timestamp and edited out whoever came in and out of Kinsley’s office but left a smoking gun in the process. They removed Kinsley exiting her office. They probably thought it would make her look guilty that she was the only one in her office, but she can’t return twice having never left.

The hairs on the back of my neck stand. Carla’s staring again.Jesus, lady, take a picture.

I stare at the screen.Valeria.She never left. I jump out of my chair. It slides backward and bangs against the wall. We have our culprit. The most obvious one. The one with unlimited access to Kinsley’s office.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Kinsley

I brace my hands on my hips and glare at the board members. “I’m not selling. That’s the end of the discussion.”

“Kinsley, you’re being narrow-minded.” Ethan shoves back into his seat and eyes Ian before returning his attention to me. “It’s in your best interest to sell.”

“No. It’s not. This is my father’s legacy. My legacy. I’m not selling what he worked so hard to create and what he intended for me to have.” I eye each one of them as if I’m issuing a challenge. And I am. A stupid–I’m going to get my ass killed challenge. But I’m done. I’m not running scared anymore. “My father refused to sell, didn’t he?”

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