My presentation is the first one, my reputation having earned me the honor of being the 8:00 a.m. keynote. At 7:20, I head into the ballroom to set up, and when I get to the podium, I open my laptop bag to take out my computer.
Except a piece of it is missing—specifically, the flash drive I’d left plugged into the side.
The drive that contains my presentation, with all my notes from this morning, as I didn’t bother loading the files from the flash drive onto the backup laptop’s hard drive.
What the fuck? Where could it have gone?
I’m riffling through my bag, hoping it just fell somewhere to the bottom, when my phone vibrates in my pocket. It’s Emma, so even though my blood pressure is rising by the moment, I pick up right away. “Kitten? Is everything okay?”
“I’m not sure.” She sounds breathless. “Puffs nearly swallowed something—a flash drive of some kind. I found him choking on it in the corner. Bad cat! Bad! I have no idea where he got it from, but just in case, I figured I’d call you.”
That demon cat. He was really determined to fuck with me this morning.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I count to three, then ask in a level tone, “Is Mr. Puffs okay?”
“Yeah, he’ll be fine—not that he deserves to be.” Mr. Puffs must still be in the vicinity because she hisses again, “Bad kitty! Bad!” before saying in a normal voice, “So, about the flash drive…”
I open my eyes and take a steadying breath. “You did the right thing calling me. My presentation is on that flash drive. Puffs must’ve stolen it from my bag while I was eating. Is Geoffrey there? I need him to plug it into a computer to make sure it’s still functional, and if so, hop into a cab and bring it to me. Tell him to go to the Grand Ballroom at The Plaza.”
Emma gasps. “Oh, no. Geoffrey just stepped out to grab groceries. But I can do it—I don’t need to be at work until ten today.”
I exhale. “That would be great, thank you. Call me as soon as you know if it works.”
“Will do.” She hangs up, and I open my email to retrieve an older version of my presentation. It’s missing all the changes from the past couple of days, but if the flash drive is too chewed up, it’ll have to do.
Six minutes later, my phone vibrates. “It works,” Emma reports, her voice oddly flat. “I’ll run it over right away.”
Frowning, I start to ask her what’s wrong, but she’s already hung up—and no matter how many times I call her, she doesn’t pick up again, texting only that she’s “on the way.” It’s not until twenty minutes later, when she texts me that she’s walking into the hotel, that I realize what else was backed up on the flash drive—and curse myself in a dozen different ways.
44
Emma
I’m shaking, literally shaking, as I walk through the ostentatious lobby, the flash drive clutched tightly in my fist. The sense of betrayal is so sharp I can’t even begin to process it, can’t think about all the implications.
Emma Walsh.
That was the name of the folder on the flash drive that caught my eye as I plugged it into my laptop to make sure it works. Marcus’s presentation was there too, along with a bunch of other folders, but I saw that “Emma Walsh” label and I just had to click.
There were a lot of files in the folder, but the first one I opened was labeled simply “Report.” And inside was indeed a report on me. It was thorough, containing so many facts about me I hadn’t even known some of them—like the name of the hospital where I was born. It talked about my family and where I went to school, listed all the places I’d ever lived and worked, mentioned all the friends I’ve ever had and all the men I’ve ever dated. It had screenshots from my social media profiles dating all the way back to my teenage years, and everything I ever added to my Amazon wish list.
Stunned, I skimmed it all, then opened some of the other files. One was my lease application for my studio; another was my college admissions essay. A few others were school assignments I’d done in college, including some short stories for my Creative Writing class. Ignoring the nausea twisting my insides, I kept clicking. My student loan applications, bank statements, vaccination records, medical history—it was all there, my entire life laid out in that folder, from my hopes and dreams to how many cavities I’d had as a child.
Operating purely on autopilot, I called Marcus to tell him that the flash drive works. Then I got dressed and caught a cab, my stomach sickeningly tight and my thoughts spinning like a tornado.