“Okay, can you confirm the transfer?” After a brief pause, he said, “Excellent.”
Just when the conversation turned to golf, Gabby took a breath. She scooped up all of the napkin crumbs and was about to stand, when she lost her balance and dropped back on her butt, right onto the donut, with a squish of crème filling and the muffled crack of the plate.
“Damn it!”
Kramer looked her way. “What are you still doing in here?” he said, as if she hadn’t been in there for the last five minutes pouring a coffee on the ground and grinding a napkin into the carpet. When he saw her scraping a donut off the ass of her cute jeans, he laughed it off. “Jesus Christ, Camille.”
“I know. I’m such a klutz,” she said, shaking her head, playing up the whole “I can’t be a spy because I’m such a bumbling idiot!” angle, easy to sell because she believed it herself.
“Just get me a new coffee,” he said as he slid the computer back in its safe and shut the painting over it.
“I did what I could with the carpet for now. I’ll finish cleaninglater.” She’d actually massacred it, but that would give her something else to do in his office later.
Before getting Kramer a fresh coffee and donut, she went to the bathroom to scrape the donut off her pants.
“Nice one,” Markus ribbed her.
“Doing a squat in heels isn’t in my wheelhouse at the moment.” If she was going to continue in this job, which she obviously wasn’t, she would need to get a handle on her fitness.
“Well, you’re not a stripper. Actually, you shouldn’t be wearing heels at all. Spies only wear heels in movies. You need something you can maneuver in.”
“Valentina wears heels every day.” She good and damn well wasn’t going to be wearing orthopedic shoes while Valentina dressed like a TV spy. “I’m not even forty.” Granny could probably do this better than her.
“I’m sure you can get back in twerking shape, if that’s what you want,” Markus said dryly. “That laptop, though. That could be our big break.”
“Oh, that’s good news,” Gabby said as she finished cleaning glaze off her pants.
“A laptop like that is too impenetrable to access remotely. All of his transfers must be on there, maybe even a stored password.”
“Uh-huh,” she murmured, letting him mansplain money laundering to her. This part seemed pretty simple. Gabby showed her ass to the mirror and craned her neck around to make sure she got all the donut flakes off.
“You know I can see you, Gabby.”
“Oh, sorry. But you know I can’t walk around with cream filling all over my—”
“Just stop talking and turn around. I refuse to say any more onthis topic.” He took a cleansing breath. “Anyway, as I was saying, that laptop has got to have all of the Russians’ best tech on it.”
“Russian tech?” That didn’t sound too impressive. Gabby leaned over and brushed crumbs out of her cleavage.
“That’s enough with the mirror,” he said, exasperated. “Button up your shirt, give that man his coffee, and stop messing with me.”
“You’re kidding, right?” He wasn’t really affected by her wardrobe adjustments. He couldn’t be. Phil had been treating her like the lunch lady for literally years. She might as well be wearing a hairnet and ladling up cafeteria spaghetti.
“Why would I be kidding?”
“Well, okay,” she said, not quite believing him. Maybe because he was the mole and he was trying to butter her up. He wasn’t too good-looking to be a spy. He was exactly good-looking enough, a honey trap seducing her into spilling her secrets. A cocktail of confusion, power, and elation surged through her veins.
She dropped the topic and headed back to Kramer’s office. Mid donut delivery, Kramer had another request. “Camille, get me some curry from that Thai place.”
She was about to order it through Uber Eats, when he said, “Pick it up yourself. Last time the delivery guy got my order wrong. I want red curry, spicy, no bamboo shoots.”
Her afternoon was going to go sideways because Kramer had too many bamboo shoots in his curry last time. That man. As she left on another dumb errand, all she could say was thank god Justin was doing the party.
In the car on the way to pick up curry, her thoughts drifted back to that laptop. Kramer had definitely done a transfer on it. It only made sense that the codes Smirnov wanted were stored there too. She knew they weren’t on a Post-it note somewhere. And it’snot like Kramer would use one of those password-keeping apps for transferring millions of dollars.
When the car came to life and Gabby’s phone connected, Sloane Ellis’s voice filled the car. “Give yourself enough time to complete tasks. Focusing on one task at a time instead of letting your mind race through twelve activities is always more efficient.”
With men it was always “I can’t, I’m fixing the car” or “I’m mowing the lawn” or “I’ll be at the office.” Meanwhile, they left the thousands of other household tasks to women. And it was always a laundry list: The kids need dinner, but you forget to get the gluten-free noodles, so you have to figure out how to make a zucchini lasagna. Oh, and his mother needs a present because it’s her birthday (he forgot), the laundry and dishes need to be done, and the kids have to do their homework. To top it off, someone needs to check in and talk to the kids about how they are doing because if no one does the emotional labor, you’re just raising well-fed sociopaths. Or maybe it was psychopaths? Whichever one was just an asshole but not a serial killer. Knock on wood. Oh, and nobody brushed their teeth.
