But those women could have had their choice of any man in the club. Julie bent her head as she walked out of the bathroom and made her way through the maze of people. Blondie and Red were sex goddesses and they knew it. They could have sophisticated men. Hot men. Men like Eric.
Julie clenched her teeth at the thought and powered through the crowd. She would have hated it if one of those women had set their sights on Eric. Julie knew she wouldn’t have been able to compete, but she wouldn’t have been able to sit back and watch, either.
But Red and Blondie didn’t even look at Eric. Their full concentration was on the computer nerds. And now she knew why. It was because they were after the USB sticks.
It was weird, Julie decided as she exited the club. The women didn’t grab the sticks and go. They were giving them back. Because they didn’t want the computer programmers to know that the information was compromised.
Julie suddenly realized she was on the sky bridge that would take her to the hotel. She was on autopilot as she wondered what was on the USB sticks.
It couldn’t be that important. Most guys who worked on computers had USB sticks on their key rings. Lloyd had one, right next to his library card.
She remembered how Lloyd had absently twirled the keys on his fingers as he bragged about his work. Revolutionary, he said. The project he was working on was a “game-changer.”
Julie quickened her pace. The competition would pay a very good price to get their hands on that intellectual property. She may have seen something big. Something that was way better than premarital screening.
If only she understood what Lloyd was actually working on! She’d make up for that later. Julie picked up the pace, her boots ringing against the ground. Right now she couldn’t wait to tell Eric and the team what she’d stumbled upon.
Julie was out of breath when she arrived at the bar in the hotel lobby. It was quiet and dark. She found the team sitting at a cluster of tables, toasting to their first assignment. She barely heard Martha telling everyone that she always knew Lloyd was a good guy when she rushed to the table.
“Guess what?” Julie interrupted excitedly. She felt the excitement coursing through her veins. “I just stumbled on corporate espionage.”
Everyone fell silent and stared at her.
“Uh-huh,” Max said as he saluted Julie with a tilt of his long-necked beer bottle. “Sure you did.”
“I’m serious.” Julie flattened her hands on the table top. “Do you remember the blonde and the redhead who were all over Lloyd’s friends? Didn’t you think that was strange?”
“No,” Max said bluntly. “It’s why the nerds go to those nightclubs in the first place. For the girls.”
“Not Lloyd,” Martha said loyally. “He was probably dragged there by those guys.”
“Well, Lloyd needs to keep his key ring in a safer place,” Julie said. “Blondie and Red have stolen his friends’ USB sticks.”
“Are you sure?” Asia asked.
“Well, they only had the sticks for a few minutes, I’m sure those guys have them back now. The guys kept their USB sticks on their key rings.”
“Most programmers do,” Ace, their resident computer expert, said from down the table.
“Wouldn’t the information be encrypted?” Asia asked.
Ace shook his head. “Not always. People get lazy.”
“I don’t know if it was encrypted,” Julie said. “All I know is that the women were downloading the information on their cell phones.” She looked at her colleagues. “So, what now? What are we going to do about it?”
“Um…nothing,” Asia said, giving Julie a curious look.
“Really?” Her friend’s response stunned her. She thought Asia would be the first to jump in and develop a strategy. Asia was just as hungry for a big case. “Why would you say that?”
“Well, first, it’s not a paying job. I don’t do pro bono work. Second, we don’t know the victim or the culprit. And third—”
“And it probably didn’t happen,” someone at the table said in a stage whisper.
Julie looked around the table. “It did happen.”
Ace gave a chuckle. “You’re just like every rookie I’ve seen, Uniform Girl.”
Rookie? Uniform Girl? Julie glared at the guy. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s like when an intern starts practicing medicine,” Max explained, “and thinks they discover a rare disease. You had your first assignment and now you see crime wherever you turn.”