The Paris Assignment

by Addison Fox

  “Morning, Steve. Thanks.” The insane urge to look him up and down and grill him about his loyalty, his computer skills and his satisfaction in working for the company lodged in her throat.

  And damn Campbell for that.

  She’d worked with these people for years and now she was looking at each of them as if they were criminals.

  The moment they’d cleared the block, she whirled on Campbell. “How dare you do this to me?”

  “What have I done?” His tone was calm but she saw sparks in the bright blue of his eyes along with a heavy dose of speculation.

  “You’ve made me wonder about the people I work with. The people I care about.”

  “You have to wonder, Abby. Whoever is doing this to you not only has some sort of motive you’re unaware of, but they’re close to you.”

  A faceless sea of New Yorkers thronged around the two of them. Why was it easier to think of the threat being one of them—nameless, faceless strangers—instead of one of her own?

  As soon as she asked herself the question, she knew the answer with a resounding certainty that couldn’t be denied.

  Because if it was one of her own, it was yet another point in the betrayal column that was her life.

  Her mother—while unintentional—had left her when she was far too young.

  Her father had made the unfathomable mistake of taking a wife who was neither warm and caring nor all that interested in mothering another woman’s child.

  And now this?

  Work was the one place she was safe. The one place she could come and escape from the deeply unsatisfactory elements of her personal life.

  And now she had to accept that even that cocoon had holes. Rather sizeable ones, in fact.

  “Let’s go in here.” Campbell pulled her into a thronging diner that would guarantee even further anonymity as they talked.

  “This is going to take longer than a half hour.”

  “Nonsense.” Campbell held up two fingers to the waitress. “These places know how to get people in and out. And it’s fairly empty and the griddle is no doubt hot.”

  “Fruit doesn’t take that long.” She shrugged as the hostess walked them toward the back of the diner.

  Campbell waited until she was settled, her menu folded in front of her. “You need pancakes or French toast. I’d go with the French toast. It feels oddly appropriate based on tonight’s trip.”

  “Fruit’s fine.”

  The calm facade he’d carried since they were in her office faded and in its place was the distinct hum of a steady burn of anger. “You’re killing yourself slowly. You barely had anything at the benefit. I forced that half a sandwich on you last night. You’ve had nothing but coffee this morning. Eat something and make it stick.”

  “I’m a healthy eater.”

  “No, you’re a noneater. There’s a difference.”

  “I’m photographed everywhere I go. There’s nothing wrong with staying trim.”

  “No, there isn’t. But there is something wrong with starving yourself.”

  “I’m busy, Campbell. I do eat.” She played with the edge of her menu, the image of a heaping plate of warm egg-battered bread taking root. “Really, I do. It’s just a stressful few days and I’m not a good eater when I’m stressed.”

  The anger banked in his eyes as their waitress stepped up to the table, a pot of coffee in hand. “Then I’m glad I dragged you here.”

  “What can I get you?” The woman multitasked, pouring their coffees while she nodded through the order.

  Campbell selected that heaping plate Abby had imagined—the French toast special with a side of bacon and hash browns.

  “I’ll have the same.” Abby handed over her menu and watched the woman hustle off. “Happy?”

  “I’ll reserve judgment until you’ve finished eating it.”

  He poured a generous shot of sugar in his coffee. “You’re as bad as my sister. I swear, if given the chance she’d live on tea and gum.”

  “Kenzi’s not that bad.”

  “She’s damn close.”

  “Why are you so upset about this?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with a little meat on your bones. In fact, it’s rather attractive.”

  “Oh.” Abby snapped her mouth closed, whatever she’d expected him to say clearly not in evidence.

  “Add on you’re working too hard.”

  “Not going there since you’ve not slept since I met you.”

  “Aren’t we a pair?” He grinned over the rim of his cup. “I can’t exactly fault you for that one.”

  “So why’d you ask me about Stef?”

  “No reason.”

  “Nope. Not buying that. Something set your antenna quivering. Deny it and you’re only going to take the mad I’ve already got simmering and make it worse.”

  “I just observed how close she is to you. I saw it yesterday and the thought registered then, but it went off a bit louder this morning. She’s always there.”

  “She’s my assistant. That’s what I pay her for. To always be there.”

  “Which means she’s got a lot of access, both to you and to McBane. She can go anywhere in the company and there’s no one who’d think twice about it.”

  A small quiver of awareness settled along her shoulder blades. “Are you trying to scare me?”

  “No, I’m asking you to look at all the angles and think through the possibilities.”

  “She’s been at the company for years and has never given me any reason to think she’s anything but loyal.”

  “Loyalties can change.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you about this. Stef is my inner, inner circle. I’ve known her for a long time and I’m not worried. So why don’t you tell me what you’ve been working on?”

  She saw the fight leap up before he tamped it down. “I’m not giving up on this.”

  “Neither am I.”

  Campbell was prevented from saying anything by the arrival of their waitress and a tray heaping with breakfast. He waited until their waitress was out of earshot before he gave a rundown of his morning.

  “T-Bone’s helping me run through the programs I set up. Reading lines of code, that sort of thing.”

  “Any more hits to your honeypot?”

  The hard line of his jaw firmed before he nodded. “Several, as a matter of fact.”

  A wave of panic washed through her system, turning the bit of hash browns into ash in her mouth. “What are we doing here, then? We need to get back. Every minute away is another minute lost.”

  “The damage has been done, Abby. T-Bone’s got a few programs running to see if we can get any clues but he still thinks we need to get into your neighbors’ homes and I agree with him.”

  “We’ll do that first thing after we get to Paris.”

  “He and I feel strongly about something else.”

  The sweet taste of syrup that sang on her tongue faded in the sober look he shot her across the table.

  “I’d like you to reconsider canceling the meetings this week.”

  * * *

  Campbell had always thought of himself as a gambling man, but the stubborn, mulish look that settled itself over Abby’s features was far worse than he anticipated.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Give me a good reason why you can’t postpone them.”

  “You mean aside from the fact it’s been on the calendar for a year and several high-profile individuals have their travel in place. Most of them are already en route.”

  “Meetings get canceled all the time.”

  “Not meetings that require a vote of the board. And not meetings that will decide several major decisions around investment, infrastructure and key global relationships.”

  Campbell understood the reticence to cancel instead of sticking to the plans, but he was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the lack of information he’d discovered so far. He didn’t want to scare her, but he couldn’t in good conscience let her think
the trip was still a good idea.

  He knew he was good at his job and he’d known going into this that whoever was hacking into an enterprise as massive as McBane wasn’t some fly-by-night amateur.

  But even he’d been surprised at the depths of skill the ghost had shown.

  And the longer they went without answers, the more menacing this threat seemed. Add on the shooting at the bar and his gut wouldn’t let up that Paris was some sort of final showdown.

  “What if you’re putting them in the line of fire, Abby? This isn’t just about you.”

  “Of course it is.” She set her fork down and Campbell didn’t miss the subtle tightening of her lips as she marshaled her arguments. “Whatever all this is about, it’s very personal. No matter how sick or twisted my ghost may be, there’s nothing to be gained by targeting my board.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do know I’m not running scared. We’ve already added security. I’m perfectly willing to add even more. But I’m not canceling.”

  “Why won’t you listen to reason?”

  “And why can’t you understand why I won’t change my mind. I fight enough prejudice as a woman in my position. You think I’m going to exacerbate it by possibly crying wolf to my global board?”

  Campbell fought to keep his voice low. “You’ve been threatened and shot at. Your company’s technology has been infiltrated at several points. Your system was hacked into for seven minutes and you can’t find the breach. That’s not nothing, Abby.”

  “Business doesn’t stop because we’ve got a problem. It can’t. That’s why I hired you, Campbell. Not to tell me how to run my business and not to ask me to change my plans. I hired House of Steele to find my problem and handle it and that’s what I expect you to do.”

  The meal he’d dug into with gusto rolled over in his stomach and Campbell wondered—not for the first time—why the women in his life seemed to come in one category.

  Stubborn and opinionated.

  And when had he come to think of Abby as a woman in his life?

  She was a job and she’d just made that point more than clear. Yet even as her unwillingness to change her mind chaffed, he couldn’t fully fault her.

  He’d been hired for a specific purpose and it wasn’t her fault he’d not found her problem yet. Nor was he within his right to tell her to change her plans.

  But damn it, something was off. It wasn’t anything he could fully define, but that singular thought continued to beat through him in hard waves.

  Right along with the fear that he couldn’t keep her safe.

  Chapter 7

  For the second time in as many days, Abby struggled with both her words and her harsh attitude that had erupted in anger. She’d always prided herself on being a leader who accepted various points of view, synthesizing them into a responsible decision.

  So why wasn’t she able to get any perspective about this situation?

  She knew Campbell was only acting on the information he had at hand. It was why she’d hired House of Steele and his services. She also knew the man didn’t just understand technology, he understood the human behavior behind its use.

  “You’re awfully quiet, but I can hardly credit it to a carb hangover since you picked at your breakfast.”

  “I had a piece and a half of my French toast, smothered in butter and syrup and I ate all my bacon.”

  “Okay. So if it isn’t a carb hangover, what has you so quiet?”

  The city streets hummed around them as they walked the few blocks to the office. Even though there were people everywhere, the sheer volume of them ensured their conversation was a private one.

  “You were a hacker before you became a good guy.”

  “I’ve always been a good guy.”

  “You know what I mean. The whole white-hat-black-hat thing.” Abby knew the terms and knew the various classifications for those who thought the challenge of infiltrating a business or government entity was not only fun, but could offer rather enterprising benefits. “You were a black hat, weren’t you?”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Let’s just say I put two and two together.”

  His eyebrows shot up but aside from that, his voice gave nothing away. “What, exactly, did you put together?”

  “Your skills are extensive and you’ve got a good handle on the criminal underbelly of technology.”

  “Because it’s my job.”

  “And Kensington mentioned a few times in college that you were in trouble for something or other.”

  Those eyebrows rose another notch. “Sold out by my sister?”

  “No. She’s loyal and she’s a vault. I’m making the inference that ‘in trouble for something or other’ had something to do with technology. Especially since you knew how to change that cheerleader’s grade.”

  They stopped at a crosswalk and his gaze drifted toward the Manhattan skyline. “Hoisted on my own petard.”

  “That’s what you get for bragging about it.”

  He smiled as he turned back toward her. “And here I thought we were sharing childhood memories.”

  She knew he was avoiding an answer—or stalling to come up with one—but even in the evasion, she could still see that thin veneer of humor and easygoing nature she was fast coming to admire about him.

  His still waters might run deep, but he knew how to navigate the waves with humor and a subtle aplomb that was appealing. He wasn’t a man who needed to push his opinions on you.

  Instead, he had a quiet confidence that was incredibly appealing. Add on a mischievous smile and she felt all her flimsy reasons for trying to resist him crumbling around her feet.

  “Since you’ve been hoisted, are you going to come clean?”

  “All right. Yes, I had a somewhat misspent youth. I was well on my way before my parents died and after...well, it only sped up the train.”

  “Why’d you stop going down that path?”

  “My grandfather stepped in and gave me an ultimatum. If I didn’t go straight he was going to turn me in himself.”

  The truth was so surprising—especially when she bumped it against her mental image of the very sweet and very gentlemanly Alexander Steele—she tripped as her heel caught in the sidewalk.

  “Careful.” His hand snaked out and grabbed her elbow. Even through the waterproof material of her raincoat, Abby felt the heat. “You okay?”

  “Of course.”

  “Where was I? Oh, yes, my grandfather. He figured out what I was up to—”

  “How?”

  “I learned a long time ago not to question his methods. Suffice it to say, there’s very little he’s unaware of and what he might miss, my grandmother is right there to pick up the slack. It’s actually a bit scary.”

  “They’re sweet.”

  “Not quite the words that come to my mind first, but anyway. If you add on his various government connections he didn’t have all that tough a time figuring out it was me.”

  “What tipped him off?”

  “All that social engineering we discussed yesterday?” She nodded, encouraging him to continue. “That’s still the best way to get into a con and I’d probed him about two or three government projects he was involved with. I then used that knowledge to my advantage.”

  “And like me, he figured out that two and two made four?”

  “More like five or six—” he shot her a wide grin “—but you’ve got the gist of it.”

  “Why’d you clean up your act?”

  “Three reasons.”

  When he didn’t elaborate, Abby couldn’t keep her curiosity at bay. “And they were?”

  “I realized just how badly I’d disappointed him. The Steele family name has a long legacy of wealth, privilege and responsibility. My actions not only flew in the face of that, but it also put us all at risk.”

  “And?”

  “What had started out as fun wasn’t all that engaging any longer. Working on the actual project was
a high but the after burn not so much. I never did it for the money, but rather so I could say I’d done it. And funny enough, when you’re doing things you’re not supposed to do, there’s not a lot of people you can turn around and brag to.”

  “Which brings us to reason number three.”

  “T-Bone.”

  “Really? What’d he do, beat you up to get you to go straight?”

  “He did me one better. He taught me how to use my skills to catch morons like me. He not only convinced me it was way more fun to be one of the white hats since we often have cooler gadgets, but he also proved to me that sooner or later, the good guys always get their man.”

  Their walk at an end, Campbell pushed at the revolving door to her building, gesturing for her to walk through. “So that’s my story.”

  Abby said her hellos to the lobby staff as she and Campbell crossed to the elevators, his words ringing in her ears.

  Did the good guys always win?

  In her experience, that wasn’t always the case. In fact, she’d often found the opposite in business. Those who were willing to be the most ruthless were often the most successful.

  Even outside of the business world, she’d seen the ravages selfish individuals could cause, her stepmother sitting at the top of the heap.

  She waited until they were once again alone in the elevator before pressing her thoughts. “I’m not sure you’re right about the good guys.”

  “You don’t agree?”

  “Let’s just say my experiences have clearly been different than yours.”

  “Come now, Abby.” He reached for her hand and she took a sharp intake of breath at the contact. “You have to have had a few experiences that reinforce good choices.”

  “I have. I just don’t think good always triumphs. I think there are a lot of bad people in this world who come out on top, over and over again.”

  His eyes narrowed at that, that heady blue of his eyes growing cloudy with concern. “Has life really been that hard for you?”

  “Of course not.” She tugged lightly on her hand but when he refused to let go, she just left it wrapped in his. “I lead a good life and I’ve got no complaints.”