Hacker For Hire (Ted Higuera Series Book 2) (10 page)

Catrina looked
around at the crowd in the ballroom. How was she going to ditch this woman?
Alison Clarke showed no signs of letting up.

“I presume you
know a little about me?” Alison sipped on her dirty martini.

“Everybody in
Seattle knows about you,” Catrina replied. “I read the
Time
magazine
article on you and saw you on
News Front
. First female CEO of a Fortune 100
company. You rescued Millennium Systems when it was on the brink of bankruptcy
during the dot com crash.” There was no one in sight that she could pawn Alison
off on.

“I’ve worked hard
all of my life to get where I am.” Alison swirled her olives around in her martini,
then ate one off of the skewer. “The only reason they made me CEO at MS was
that they wanted a convenient whipping boy, or whipping girl as it were, when
it crashed. No one expected me to save it.”

Catrina could see
the fire in Alison’s eyes when she talked about her business.
At least she
has passion for what she’s doing.
But Catrina couldn’t bring herself to
like Alison. She was still an authority figure.

“MS was an old,
brick and mortar business.” Alison spat out the words like they were curses.
“They were an early adopter in the computer revolution, but they were mired in
old technology. They weren’t ready for the Twenty-First Century.”

“You changed the
company’s name, didn’t you?”

“Yes, it had been
an old family company, Dunn and Metcalf Business Machines. I thought that part
of our new image had to be a new name, a name for the Twenty-First Century.”

Catrina reached
for a glass of champagne from a waiter’s tray, then pulled her hand back like
it had been scalded. “I’m always glad to see a woman be successful. It sounds
like you’ve achieved your dreams.” Catrina started to turn away from Alison. It
was time to break free.

“I came looking
for you because I have a problem.” Alison took on a serious tone. “The kind of
thing that someone like you can help me with.”

“’Someone like
me?’”
What did this woman think she was?
What kind of problem could a
high flyer like Alison Clarke have? Matrimonial problems? Was her husband
stepping out on her? Did she need to get the goods on him for a messy divorce?

“Let’s step
outside, Cat. I can call you Cat can’t I? I understand that all of your close
associates do.”

Overwhelmed by Alison’s
charisma and assertive personality, despite her desire not to like her, Catrina
didn’t respond. Alison took Catrina’s arm and steered her towards the door. In
the hotel’s lobby, Alison led Catrina out the main entrance.

“I don’t want
anyone overhearing this conversation.” Alison’s kept her voice low.

The cold night air
bit at Catrina’s bare shoulders.
What kind of whack job is she to drag me
outside in this weather?

“We have an
internal problem at my company,” Alison began. “Someone is leaking highly
confidential information. I hired an outside consulting firm to do a little
digging around for me. Find out where the leak was. The consultant was making
good progress, getting access to all sorts of information, then she
disappeared. No one has heard from her in over a week. Her company can’t find
her. Her husband and kids are going out of their minds. I feel terrible. If
something happened to her because of me, I don’t know what I’d do.”

Catrina saw the
tears forming in Alison’s eyes. She really meant it. She was worried about this
consultant.

“I’m going to need
a little more information,” Catrina said. “Why don’t you come to my office
tomorrow? We can talk in a more comfortable, confidential setting.”

****

Alison Clarke took
the Sixth Avenue South exit off of I-5. She turned her silver-gray Acura MDX
south on Sixth Avenue and followed her GPS to Massachusetts Street.

“You have arrived
at your destination.” She liked to call her GPS Sally. Sally now told her, “The
address is on the right.”

Not at all what Alison
expected. Apparently, Cat Flaherty’s office was in an old warehouse.

A row of loading
docks was to the left; up a few concrete steps a heavy glass door appeared to
be the entrance.

Alison parked in
front of the run-down looking warehouse and walked up to the door. Next to the
door, a small sign said “Flaherty and Associates.” Below the sign was a brass
colored speaker and a telephone receiver.

Alison picked up
the phone and pushed the red button.

“Flaherty and
Associates, may I help you?” An electronic voice sounded in Alison’s ear. It
had a slight accent.

“Alison Clarke here
to see Catrina Flaherty.”

“Yes, Mrs. Clarke.
Come right up.”

A buzzer sounded
in the door. Alison pulled the handle. The door weighed a ton. She stepped into
the tiny foyer. A single ficus plant, really only a stick with three leaves and
dry soil in its pot, sat sadly in the entryway. Brown leaves littered the floor
below the ficus. Next to the sad plant a long stair case led up to her right.

Alison climbed the
seemingly endless tread-worn carpet-covered stairs to come out on a landing at
the top. In front of her, a solid looking door with a “Flaherty and Associates”
sign blocked the way. She turned the door knob, it was unlocked.

The carpet in the
office was no better than the carpet on the stairs. The reception desk in front
of her looked like World War II surplus. An ancient CRT computer monitor took
up most of the desk space.

A heavy black
woman in a shapeless linen dress with an open collar, loose short sleeves, an
intricate red, green and gold geometric pattern down the front and two sets of
green, yellow and red horizontal stripes just below the knees rose from behind
the desk.

“Good to see you,
Mrs. Clarke. Mrs. Flaherty is expecting you.”

There was that
accent. Alison couldn’t quite pin it down.

“Please follow me.”
The receptionist’s dress flowed behind her as she walked. “Would you like a cup
of coffee, tea or water?”

“Coffee would be
nice.” Alison, noting that the receptionist was exceedingly light-footed for
such a large woman, followed the woman through a warren of secondhand desks.
Some had out-of-date computers and monitors, others were just piled with paper.
The women working behind the desks looked like refugees from some kind of third
world conflict. A woman who might have been pretty once, but with
hollow-looking blackened eyes sat at one desk. Another extremely skinny woman
with shaky hands and darting eyes sat at another. They all wore dated business
clothes, probably courtesy of Good Will.

“Do you take cream
and sugar?” the receptionist asked.

They finally
arrived at a glass door in the far wall. Through a large glass window, Alison
saw Catrina, sitting behind another cheap desk, talking on the phone. “Yes,
cream and sweetener would be fine.”

Doubt began to
seep into Alison’s mind. Was Catrina Flaherty really the right person for this
job? Maybe she should have gone to the police.

“Ms. Clarke, thank
you for coming.” Catrina hung up the phone without saying ‘goodbye’ and rose to
meet Alison as she entered the office. “How can we help you?” She thrust out
her hand. “Abeba, take Ms. Clarke’s coat please.”

Alison hesitated
for a moment. She wondered if she’d ever get her expensive camel hair coat
back.
What the hell
,
in for a penny in for a pound.
She handed
the black woman her coat.

Alison shook the
proffered hand, noted Catrina's firm grip. She held on longer than last night,
looked in her eyes and assessed Catrina. Her hand was hard and calloused. More
like a working man’s hand, not what she expected from a woman.

This was a totally
different Catrina than Alison had met the night before. Gone was the pretty
cocktail dress, the heels, jewelry and makeup. Today, Catrina worked with a
plain face, tight jeans and a blue button-down Oxford shirt, a sharp contrast
to Alison’s red tailored business suit and spiked heels. Catrina was taller
than Alison, maybe by four inches or so. Her short blond hair lacked the bouncy
curls of last night, but her beautiful gray eyes lit up her face.

“I told you last
night that I had a problem.” Alison checked out the unmatched chairs opposite
Catrina’s desk. “You have an interesting operation here.” She finally resigned
herself to sitting in the moth-eaten chair. “I didn’t expect you to be so busy,
to have a full staff here on a Saturday.”

“We’re a
twenty-four hour operation. When a client needs our help, we have to be here
for them.”

The same secondhand
store motif as the rest of the building decorated Catrina’s office. An old oak,
glass-fronted legal book case stood across from her desk. An unmatched credenza
with pictures of Catrina and a boy of varying ages from toddler to high school
sat behind her. There was no evidence of a father.

One picture showed
Catrina walking behind the boy as he rode on a pony. The much younger Catrina
looked like Barbie. Long blonde hair, long legs, big boobs, slim waist. The
last twenty years had put a few pounds on her body, a few lines on her face.
The boy was a toe-headed blond.

A picture of a
freckle-faced twelve-year old riding the tea cups with her at Disneyland sat
next to the boy on the pony. A handsome young man, in a cap and gown, displayed
his high school diploma to the right.

“You have a good-looking
son.”

“Thank you.” Catrina
looked over her shoulders at the pictures. “Matthew’s in college now. He’s
going to Seattle Central for a couple of years, then he hopes to transfer to
the U.”

Alison could tell
by the look in Catrina’s eye that something was not well in paradise. Another
mother could always tell.

“So,” Catrina
turned back to Alison. “Tell me about your problem.”

Alison hesitated.
Now that she had seen Catrina’s secondhand store office, her war-refugee
staff, she questioned whether she was the right person for the job. Finally,
Alison cast the die. “We’re getting ready to launch a new product.” Alison
turned behind her and closed the door. “This is going to shake up the tech
industry like nothing else since the iPod. I won’t go into the details now, let
me just say that secrecy is of the utmost importance. We can’t let our competitors
know about this product before our launch. We want to blitz the market. We want
to sweep the consumers off of their feet.”

The door opened
and the receptionist entered with a silver tray in her hands. She set a cup of
coffee in front of Alison and handed another to Catrina.

“Cream and
sweetener, Mrs. Clarke.” The woman set a glass creamer and a sugar holder in
front on Alison.

Alison appraised
the coffee cup. Clear glass with a stem and base. Gold rim. Gold letters
spelled out “F&A.” Certainly more classy than the office and the furniture.

“I don’t
understand what a new product has to do with a missing consultant.”

Alison noticed
that Catrina drank her coffee black.

“We had a leak.”
Alison gulped a breath of air. “News of the product got out to the press. It
was a PR nightmare. The leaked information could only have come from one of the
members of the executive team or the board of directors. I had to know who was
trying to sabotage my campaign. I hired DigiGuard Security to, shall we say,
investigate. To find the leak.”

Catrina didn’t
respond. Her stare made Alison uncomfortable.

“Donna Harrison,
the president of DigiGuard, reported to me weekly,” Alison continued. “They
were making good progress. She thought she would have proof for me by the end
of the week. Then she disappeared. Just dropped off the face of the earth.”

“Have you gone to
the police? Did her family fill out a missing persons report?”

How could Alison
make her understand? “Her husband has filed a report. He didn’t tell them what
she was working on, he respected our confidentiality agreement. I haven’t gone
to the police.”

“I’m sorry, Ms.
Clarke, but this doesn’t seem like our usual type of job. Maybe I could give
you a couple of names . . .”

“No.” Alison made
up her mind. “I need you. From what I’ve learned about you, you’re the only
person for this job.”

"We usually
don't take on missing persons cases . . ."

"This is
bigger than that." Alison cut in. "Donna's missing, but why is she
missing? What did she learn that made her a target? Something very wrong is
going on in my company. I need to find out what it is, and I don't want word of
this to get out to the press. Stock prices would plummet."

"You're
assuming something bad happened to Donna. Maybe she just had enough, needed a
break. She's probably sunning herself on a beach in Mexico right now."

"Then find
out for me." Alison leaned forward in her chair, made fierce eye contact
with Catrina. "Make sure she's okay. I have to know what she found."

“Why not just take
this to the police?”

“It’s delicate."
Alison paused for a long minute, collecting her thoughts. "Let’s just say
that what Donna was doing may not have been entirely legal.”

****

Tommy Prince loved
the Seattle Aquarium on Pier 59. His mom brought him down here today for a
special ninth birthday. He liked playing with the octopus and starfish in the
tide pool, but best of all, he
loved
watching the seals and sea otters.
He could stand above the pools and watch them sun themselves on the rocks, or
go below and see them swimming through the water like torpedoes.

“Mom, I’m getting
hungry.”

“Okay, Tommy. It’s
getting late anyway. Let’s grab some fish and chips and we’ll head home.”

For Tommy, this
was the highlight of an aquarium outing. He loved walking up to the open-air
counter on the next pier and ordering fish and chips for Mom and himself. Then
Mom gave him the money to pay with. He felt like he was treating her.