He let out a sigh. Ryan was right. “Okay, just install cameras for now. I’ll bring in Elle if it happens again. But I have a bad feeling about this whole thing, and I’m beginning to regret making Rachel come back here.”
?
?She isn’t alone,” Ryan said. “We’ve got her back. She might use us for target practice if she finds out we’re looking out for her, but she’s still one of ours.”
“Yeah. You’re right.”
“Wait,” Ryan said. “Can you say that again? I need to hit record first.”
Harvard hung up and turned to fix his coffee. There was no denying something was going on with Rachel. Something that might affect the job they were on. And Harvard didn’t want his team to be blindsided by whatever she was hiding, which meant he had to talk to her about it.
It would be easier to squeeze blood from a stone.
Chapter Seven
Just before lunch, when Rachel had given up on her PA ever turning up for work, she bounced through the door to her office.
“Should I have knocked?” Elle Roberts, Benson Security’s resident hacker, said. “Do PAs knock when it’s their own boss’s office? I’ve never been a secretary before. Guess I’ll have to make it up as I go. How do I look?” She held her arms out and twirled. “I’m calling this outfit Office Minnie.”
She was dressed in a full red skirt, à la nineteen fifty. It was covered in white polka dots and teamed with a short-sleeved black cardigan that fit her like a glove. She’d buttoned it right up and wore it as a top, with a silver Minnie Mouse brooch pinned to it. There was a black and white polka dot bow in her bright red hair, which, if Rachel wasn’t mistaken, was a wig. To finish the outfit off, Elle wore reading glasses with cat-eye-shaped frames.
“I thought the glasses made me look more secretarial.” Elle was obviously proud of herself.
“I would never in a million years hire a PA who came to work dressed like that,” Rachel said.
“I know.” Elle looked particularly pleased. “It will help our cover. We aren’t supposed to get on. People will take one look at you in your boring black Gucci dress and me in this awesome outfit and instantly know that there’s no way we’re best buds.” She grinned at Harvard, who’d gotten out of the seat he’d been parked in all morning to offer it to Elle. “I rock,” she told him as she plopped into the vacated chair.
“I’m getting more coffee,” Harvard said with an amused shake of his head. “Want some?”
“Totally.” Elle bounced in place.
“It looks like you’ve already had too much caffeine. And this dress is Chanel, not Gucci,” Rachel felt the need to point out.
“My mistake.” Elle didn’t sound contrite. “Anyway, I’m going to ignore the fact you’ve sent me about a million texts—some of which were pretty damn insulting—asking why I wasn’t here catering to your every whim. For your information, I got in at five this morning and spent the hours before the IT department turned up checking their protocols. After that, I was given a tour of the facility as part of my orientation. I didn’t complain as it was a good way to scope out the place. And now I’m here. Not playing video games, as you so rudely suggested.”
Rachel sat down in her desk chair again. It was like sitting on rocks. Slippery, jagged rocks. The shiny leather meant her backside kept shifting forward, while hard little lumps under the cushion made it painful to move. Or stay still. The chair had to go. She could put up with everything else—the furniture that looked like it had been used in the production set for the movie Wall Street, walls painted a delicate shade of vomit green, and overhead lighting that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a government building. But she could not sit on that damn chair a second longer.
She grabbed her phone and stood while she opened the website of a reputable office supply company. “One second,” she said, as she ordered a top-of-the-line desk chair—in red. “Okay, carry on. What were you saying?”
“It’s good to know I have your full attention. I was saying that TayFor’s head of security has a bug up his butt the size of a VW Beetle.”
“Terrance? He seems capable enough. What’s the problem with him?”
“You mean apart from the fact it’s Terrance and never Terry?” Elle was saying as Harvard came into the room and handed her a coffee.
“Terrance King knows what he’s doing,” Harvard said. “He’s just an asshole about it. He thinks he could have handled this situation in-house and sees bringing in Benson Security as a slight to his ego. Big-fish-little-pond syndrome.” He looked around for another chair, but there wasn’t one.
“Have mine,” Rachel told him and watched carefully as he sat. He didn’t appear uncomfortable. “Don’t you feel like you’re sitting on rocks?”
“Nope.” He sipped his coffee.
“Well, you can keep the chair. I’ve ordered another one that should arrive later today. Sitting on that is agony.”
“Don’t know what you’re talking about; this feels fine.”
“Either Rachel has a really boney backside—” Elle piped up.
“Rachel’s ass is perfect,” Harvard interrupted.