After letting out another fake cough into my mask just in case anyone watched those cameras, I peered around. It took me some time to find the bathrooms, seeing as the doors practically blended into the walls themselves. However, once I found it, I ripped the door open and stepped inside.
I checked to make sure these asshats didn’t have cameras in the bathrooms.
“Well, at least there’s that,” I muttered when I didn’t see any.
I shuffled my cell out of my pocket and navigated to one of Ranger’s many applications he’d crafted for the crew in the time that was an Honor Hog. He was resourceful with tech, I’d give him that, and my fingers scrolled to an app that was simply titled, ‘C.D.’
For ‘camera dismemberment.’
Yeah, Ranger was a bit dramatic that way.
However, once I had the app pulled up and ready to go, all I had to do was get within range of those cameras. I couldn’t be behind a wall like I was now. The app was too temperamental for that. But I went over to one of the urinals and flushed before turning on the faucet to make it sound like I was washing my hands.
Then I walked out of the bathroom, acting like I was checking my text messages.
Just in case the cameras had sound, I groaned and shook my head before my fingers started their assault on the screen of my burner phone. I activated the app and counted in my head, making it look like I was finishing up a text. I tapped the screen before I closed my phone out, slipping it back into my pocket. Ranger coded the app so that it would run, even when my screen was off, until I double-pressed the power button on the side of my phone.
Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen…
When I didn’t hear any hard and fast footsteps rushing in my direction, I lunged for the woman’s desk. One quick peek underneath showed me her purse, and it didn’t take long for me to dig out her keyring. She didn’t have many keys. One of them was obviously a key for her car, as well as the spare. She had a couple of other brass-looking keys along with a key that, weirdly enough, had a pink hearts sort of design on it.
That had to be her home key.
“Gotcha,” I muttered as I dug the putty out of my hoodie pocket.
Twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven…
I depressed all of her keys quickly into the putty in order to have an outline. I wouldn’t need all of them, just a key to her place. But I was running out of time. I heard the elevator gear up, and I flipped the case of putty closed before I dug around for her wallet. I wouldn’t have enough time to snap a picture of her driver’s license for her address, so I would just have to make due with my memory. I shoved it into my hoodie before smushing her keys down into the bottom of her purse, which was where they were in the first place. Then I set about trying to place my hands on her wallet.
I needed her address.
Once I found her license in a side pocket of her wallet and I said her address in my head multiple times until the elevator was much too close to the top level where I was for comfort.
I just barely managed to get out from beneath her desk and back onto my feet before the elevator doors opened.
“Check these front offices first,” a big, burly guy said as he stormed off the elevator. He thwapped a man standing at his side in the chest. “You. Take Berkowitz with you and check the back hallway.”
Thirty-five seconds.
I had to admit, that was a pretty decent response time for an in-house security brigade.
“What are you looking at?” a man asked as he stormed by me.
I didn’t even say anything. I just drew in a breath like I needed to say something, and then coughed.
That got him to wrinkle his nose and walk away quickly.
“Disgusting,” the man muttered beneath his breath.
I quickly shoved my hand into my pocket and fiddled around until I found the side button on my phone. I had to bring thecameras back up before they suspected me. I heard one of the guys round the corner behind me, disappearing down that back hallway. So I took a chance.
I quickly double-pressed the power button on the side of my burner phone.
And all of the little red dots stopped blinking on the cameras.
“You waiting for something?” the burly man asked as he strolled right up to me.
I had to tilt my head back a bit to look up at him. The fucking gargantuan had to be at least six and a half feet tall. And sure, I wasn’t a shrimp or anything. But six inches was six inches, you know?
