Page 24 of Just Hide

"I'm sorry," she said. "I have to take this. I'll go outside."

“No problem,” Connor said in exactly the right, slightly annoyed, tone.

"Hello?" Cami said into the silent phone, rushing for the door and hoping Connor would delay Sandra long enough for her to be able to get what she needed.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

There was nobody else in the corridor. That was a plus, Cami thought, as she walked down it while speaking into the phone, just so that the sound of her voice faded out of earshot convincingly.

Then, before she reached the stairway, she doubled back, treading softly, heading straight for the IT manager's open and empty office.

She'd need to be careful here, she knew. Sandra Keyes was the head of IT, and she would have security systems in place. Hopefully, nothing that sounded a direct alarm to her own personal phone, which Cami had seen she had on her.

This could land her in trouble. It was insane, but Connor had condoned it. Well, sort of, at least. He'd definitely been on board with it.

Cami hoped that she wouldn't have too much difficulty getting into the system. A lot depended on whether Sandra had bothered to set up stringent security on her own machine during office hours. But even so, as she slipped into the chair, breathing in the trace of this woman's lemony perfume, she felt her heart speed up with tension.

She had maybe ten minutes. She didn't think this brisk woman would have limitless patience in a police interview.

Cami took a deep breath and told herself to focus. She had to get into the system, find the records, see who had accessed them, and get out before Sandra Keyes opened the door of the room opposite.

Nothing like pressure, she reminded herself, her lips tight as she tapped the keyboard. The data files were locked, so she needed to find a way in.

Quickly, accessing a program she'd written online, she allowed it to run. This program could brute force its way into most passwords within a minute or two, but it had come short when tested against highly complex passwords.

So, to avoid that causing problems, she should probably run a simultaneous program that might be able to get in the back end of the machine through a stealthier route by bypassing the main access and coming in via a side pathway that tricked the machine into thinking it was open and allowing access to files. She'd been pleased with its performance so far. When testing it, it had gotten her where she needed to be about sixty percent of the time.

Glancing again at the opposite door, Cami listened out for the sound of footsteps. If anyone came down the corridor, she was going to duck under the desk until they passed. If they came into the office, she didn't know what she'd do.

For now, though, the coast was clear. She focused on the screen and sent out the program to look for a back door into the system and willed all her software to work without any delays.

Then she heard what she'd dreaded the most. Heavy, quick footsteps approaching down the corridor.

Cami nearly swallowed her heart as she dove under the desk, realizing how risky and how illegal this was, and how much trouble she'd be in if she was actually discovered, cowering under the desk of the woman that they were interviewing.

She felt sick inside as the footsteps slowed as they reached the door and then stopped.

"Sandra?" a man's voice said. "You there?"

Another step into the office. He was looking for her, and Cami now prayed that if she wasn't there, he wouldn't start looking for whatever he needed on his own. If he did, if he moved one more step, he'd come within sight of her, and she'd be found.

Cami held her breath, reciting fervent pleas in her mind for him to turn away and go, realizing that her heart was now pounding at double the speed.

Then, after what seemed like an eternity, the footsteps retreated and continued down the corridor. She stayed where she was for another few seconds, nails digging into her palms, sweat prickling her forehead, every fiber of her being listening for the sound of him coming back.

But it looked like he wasn't.

As quietly as she could, shaking like a leaf, she clambered out from under the desk and scooted back into the chair, the slightest noise now making her flinch.

But her program had worked—the back door one. She was in the system and could navigate it.

Knowing that speed was of the essence, Cami made the fastest moves in the shortest time. She took a high-capacity USB drive out of her pocket and began copying everything she could from those data files onto it. That way if she had to make a hasty retreat, she'd have something.

In the meantime, though, she could look at what was there and how it was set up.

The facial recognition program had been heavily used since its installation just a few months ago, and Cami could see that there were dozens of entries in the logs. They also had the facial features of known trouble causers and non-payers on record. She guessed those were highly confidential and the reason Sandra hadn’t wanted the police looking.

After a few more minutes of searching, she had a list of the names of the people who had accessed the system.

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