“Shit, did you tell her you’re in New York? Is she mad you didn’t visit her?”
“She doesn’t know, no. I called her to ask her a question.”
“What question?”
I suck in a long breath, hoping this won’t blow up in my face. There’s a reason why I kept that information private, and either she’ll use it to push harder, or she’ll be mad that I didn’t share it sooner.
“Even though they aren’t on speaking terms, Becker still sends an invitation for his birthday to my father. It always gets delivered by courier at the New York branch.”
“The one Emilia runs.”
“Yes.”
“Why would Becker still send an invitation after all this time?”
“I have no idea. Maybe as some kind of open door in case my father ever wants to rekindle their old friendship. All I know is my father never attends.”
“Okay… I feel like you’re telling me this for a specific reason.”
I sigh. “As Richard’s son, I could technically attend the party in my father’s name. As in, ‘My father couldn’t make it, so he sent me to pay our respects instead.’”
Andrea slides around in the tub and gapes at me. “You could?!”
“Technically, yes. It’s customary in those spheres.”
She’s now beaming with excitement, plans already firing left and right in her mind. “Are you saying that if I hide the camera tomorrow, and Becker opens his safe because of his ‘special party’ the day after, we could be back there another day later to not only retrieve the camera and get the code but also get the safe to open and access what’s in it?!”
“No, I’m saying there’s potentially that option.”
“Lex! When are we ever going to have such an amazing opportunity?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s literally perfect. The camera would only be there for two and a half days, making it even less likely he’d find it. And I’ll venture the invitation comes with a plus one? We could go together.”
“It’s still risky. If we get caught in his office—”
“There will be a hundred and sixty guests, Lex. What’s he gonna do? Have us killed in front of everyone? At the very worst, he’ll kick us out and never allow us in there ever again. By then, either we already have what we went there for, or we failed and come back empty-handed.”
I take a moment to consider my options. I knew she’d use the information to come up with a new plan, and as much as I’d like to rebuke it, we are so fucking close to ending all this. Her idea doesn’t sound half bad, but we need to hash out the details and make sure it’s foolproof.
“What about the key? Becker’s office will be locked.”
“I can get it through Paola. Or I can steal the one from Mrs. Reed’s office. She wouldn’t notice by the time the party starts.”
“Paola would be okay with that?”
“Probably. I can meet up with her after her shift, and we’ll make a copy right away, so the key is impossible to identify. She wouldn’t be in trouble.”
“Hm… Okay, so, now we’re at Becker’s party, we somehow managed to sneak away from the guests, into the hallway, and unlocked his office. What then?”
“Well, we get the camera back, we plug it, watch the footage, and get the code from it. Then we open the safe and start working.”
“Which means?”
“We won’t have time to hack into the computer there, and Becker seems paranoid about that laptop, so there might be a program in place to erase everything on it if we mess it up. So, we clone the hard drive instead.”
I know I’m playing dumb, but I still ask, “How?”
