He deserved to be taken down for that alone.
As the desktop loaded she plugged in the USB drive she’d brought, opened the file manager, and navigated to the directory Cassandra had identified from the metadata in the vendor invoices. Financial records. Donor databases. Transfer logs. All of it was there, organized in folders with names like Q3 Disbursements and Foundation Operations, as if what he was doing was legitimate.
The progress bar crawled. Fallon watched it, counting seconds, her pulse steady and her breathing controlled. Thirty percent. Fifty. The files were larger than expected—spreadsheets with years of data, PDFs of bank statements, scanned documents she hadn’t anticipated.
A radio crackled somewhere below her. Close—down the hallway. A guard’s voice came through, muffled by the floor between them. “Just doing a walk-through. Back in five.”
She looked at the progress bar. Seventy-two percent.
She couldn’t pull the drive. An incomplete transfer meant corrupted files, and leaving signs she’d been here. She pressed her thumbnail into the pad of her index finger hard enough to leave a mark and watched the bar crawl.
Eighty-one percent.
A door opened in the hallway. Shit. The guard was checking each room.
Ninety percent.
She scanned the office. There weren’t many places to hide. No curtains, the opening under the desk didn’t have a modesty panel so she couldn’t go there.
But there was built-in cabinetry that ran along the wall beneath the windows—a low mahogany credenza with brass-handled doors, the kind meant for storing files and supplies.
She killed the monitor. The transfer would continue without it. She rushed over to the credenza. The interior was maybe two feet wide, eighteen inches deep, and two feet tall. Half the shelves had been removed, leaving office supplies stacked on the bottom.
No normal person could fit inside it. Fortunately, that didn’t apply to Fallon.
She swept the supplies to one side, then backed into the cabinet feet first. Her hips fit. Barely. She drew her knees to her chest and folded forward over them, compressing her torsoagainst her thighs until her ribs ached and her right shoulder sent a sharp flare of protest through the joint.
Her spine curved into a shape that would have been impossible. She reached out and closed the cabinet door.
Total darkness. The brass handle clicked shut against her fingertips. She stopped breathing.
A few seconds later, the office door opened.
A flashlight beam swept the room. She could see thin lines of light moving through the seams of the cabinet doors—across the ceiling, down the walls, across the desk. The light paused on the desk. Held there. She heard him take a step into the room.
Shit. If he went over and messed with the computer there was no way he wouldn’t see that files were being downloaded onto the USB drive. She pressed her hand against the cabin door. Her only chance to get away would be right as the guard figured out what was going on.
She replayed the layout of the building in her head—windows she could go through, other possible exits. This was why Cassandra made sure Fallon always knew as much as possible about the locations she was hitting. There were always unknown factors that could cause a situation to go south.
The guard finding that USB drive wassouth-polesouth.
But the light swept once more, then the door closed.
She didn’t move. She listened to him check the room across the hall, then another. Then the stairwell creaked again, heading down. A radio crackle, muffled now. He was gone.
She pushed the cabinet door open and unfolded herself one joint at a time. Her right shoulder had stiffened further in the compressed position, and her left knee buckled for a half second when she stood. She caught herself on the edge of the desk and waited for the joint to hold.
She knew her body. It could do almost unnatural things when asked, but there was always a price.
She turned the monitor back on. Transfer complete.
She pulled the drive and crossed to the office door. Down the stairwell in the dark, every step careful on a knee that was still deciding whether to cooperate. The ground floor was empty. She reached the service door, eased it open, checked the gap. The fire dancer was still performing. The guard was back at his post, but his attention was on the crowd.
She slipped out behind him. Blended into the edge of the audience before the next rotation of the poi was complete.
The drive was in the hidden pocket she’d sewn into the lining of her outfit, pressed flat against her hip. She picked up a glass of champagne from a passing tray and took a sip she didn’t want.
Done. The job was done, and no one had seen a thing.
She gave herself thirty seconds of satisfaction. Let it sit in her chest, warm and sharp. They were now one huge step closer to taking Chemo Money Asshole down.
She started moving toward the front of the property, mapping her exit route through the crowd. Once she was out, she’d be home in forty minutes, and have the drive uploaded to Cassandra’s server by midnight. All in all, a good day’s work.
She started wandering toward the exit, scooting past a couple and bumping into someone behind her she hadn’t even realized was there. A hand grasped her elbow to steady her.
“So sorry,” she muttered, gently trying to disengage her arm without making a big deal about it. Blending in was always the most important thing.
But the fingers didn’t let go. Instead, the masked man behind her leaned his head toward her ear.
“You owe me a watch.”
