Page 30 of The San Marco Heist

My inner angel nudged me, a reminder that there were more important things to focus on. Something about this woman scrambled my brain, but I wouldn’t screw up the mission.

“Mr. White’s the best.” The receptionist opened a door into a glass-walled meeting room. “I’m sure he’ll be able to design exactly what you need.”

I pulled out a plush leather office chair for my lovely wife, Mrs. Eloise Stone, and she ignored it. Instead, she walked to the far windows to take in the view.

“Can I get you anything while you wait?” asked the receptionist. “Coffee, tea, water?”

“Coffee, please. Milk and sugar-alternative for both of us.” Scarlett gestured vaguely and the other woman left. “Brie, you copy?”

“I do,” said her sister over my comms. Their technology was top-notch. The earpiece was invisible, unless someone literally stared into my ear canal, plus they’d granted me one of their custom phones. It looked like a run-of-the-mill store-bought smartphone, but it had required a half-hour of instruction before I was allowed to turn it on.

If it got lost, there was an embedded GPS chip with its own power backup. And if it was stolen, it would leak a chemical that ate the phone from the inside out so no one could trace it back to them or get information off it.

No wonder the one I’d snatched from their getaway driver self-destructed the moment I’d taken it out of its Faraday pouch last weekend.

I joined Scarlett at the window and leaned close to whisper, despite us being alone in the room and the entire team listening in. “I’m just trying to sell it.”

She scanned the bustling city—no, she was scanning the faint reflection of the room. “They have us in a meeting room with no computers, instead of an office.”

Brie had only needed five minutes to bypass the security of their cloud-based booking software. Apparently, it wasn’t the first time she’d come up against that particular program. All it took was one quick call to the office to cancel on behalf of their noon appointment and a matching call to the man who was supposed to be coming in. That hack had been simple, but it had only provided scheduling data, which wouldn’t give us a floor plan.

Now, Scarlett had two drives—one USB and one microSD, depending on what was available—in her new handbag, and we were hunting for a computer to plug one of them into. Brie would take care of the rest.

But no computers meant no USB or SD access.

“Step one,” she murmured, “if he doesn’t bring a computer with him, convince him to.”

“Step two, distract him while we”—I placed the hand on her back again—“insert whichever tab into whichever slot.”

“Step three.” She moved closer, canting her head and batting her eyelashes at me. “Don’t throw Mr. Lucius Stone out this window.”

Brie snorted.

“Is it too late to switch my name? I was thinking maybe Maximus?”

Brie laughed again.

“Mute yourself if you’re going to keep that up, Gabrielle. And you.” She removed my hand from her back. “Behave yourself.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Stone?”

At the sound of the architect’s voice, Scarlett seamlessly moved from reproach to cover and slipped her fingers into mine. “Bruce White?”

“Pleased to meet you.” Under his arm, a notepad and the laptop we needed. “If you’d like to take a seat, we can discuss what you’re looking for.”

We walked hand-in-hand to the table, where I took every opportunity to touch her. Positioned her chair with one hand and held her arm with the other. Stroked her shoulders when she sat. Pulled back her hair from her shoulder as though I were going to kiss her cheek or neck.

A kiss would have been a bridge too far. I had the same goal as her in the end, and attempting to throw her too far off her game wouldn’t help either of us.

“There you go, muffin. Now why don’t you tell Mr. White what you’re looking for?” I pulled my phone out and addressed Bruce. “You don’t happen to have a Wi-Fi password? I have some emails to check.”

He smiled and nodded, scratching something on his notepad before tearing it off for me. “Here’s the password for our guest network.”

“Swing and a miss,” said Brie. “They won’t have anything valuable on a guest network, so it’s safer if you don’t connect.”

“Thanks.” I settled into the seat next to Eloise-Scarlett and did my part as dutifully distracted husband, scrolling absently through a deluge of fake messages and websites pre-loaded onto my phone.

The receptionist returned with our coffees, which were sadly pale and sweet-smelling. “Can I get anyone anything else?”

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