Page 25 of The Playboy Meets His Match
“It should go off in one more minute. Your suggestion to put a couple of empty beer cans nearby should make the guard think kids were playing a prank. He’ll have to get down on his knees to shut the thing off.”
As Merry stood beside Jason, she could see the night guard sitting at the front desk, thumbing through a magazine.
While they waited, Jason stood close, his hand on her arm and she was only half aware of the danger of their situation, more aware of the danger to her heart from the cowboy at her side.
As they had made their plans, Merry had considered that these first few minutes would be their most vulnerable, and now her racing pulse could not slow.
Shattering the quiet night, the horn began a continuous, raucous blast. The security guard moved cautiously around the desk, paused at the door to peer outside and then stepped out. With his hand resting on his pistol, he crossed the parking lot. Moving cautiously he peered between the two cars and then disappeared as he knelt down.
“Let’s go!” Merry said without waiting. Jason ran beside her and they made a stealthy dash, sliding through the front door and racing around a corner out of sight. At any second, she expected to hear a yell from the guard, but the only sound was their footfalls.
When Jason stopped abruptly, she bumped against him. He steadied her, pulling her close against his side as he pointed toward a door to the stairs. They moved more slowly, opening and closing the door without a sound. She was surprised how easily Jason managed all this—as if it were second nature to him.
They made the long climb to the executive floor, the tenth story of the building where the offices were spacious, elegant and locked. At the top floor she noticed Jason wasn’t winded. He glanced at her. “You weren’t kidding about working out. You just climbed ten flights without difficulty.”
“So did you.”
“I should have known from that first night,” he remarked dryly and she grinned, remembering how she had caught him by surprise and knocked him flat. Her grin vanished as he hurried to a door and efficiently picked the lock.
In seconds he was through the outer door to the offices and then he was through Dorian’s locked office door. Silent and dark, the empty office made Merry realize she was crossing a line now herself—taking risks to catch a criminal, but involving Jason, too.
He moved with the quiet certainty of a cat, and, again, she wondered about Jason’s past. Then her thoughts shifted to the office and the task at hand. Walnut paneling, sheer drapes, oil paintings, crushed velvet upholstery surrounded a mammoth oak desk.
She studied Jason as he moved unhesitatingly to the desk and checked the drawers. “For a cowboy, you’re very adept at breaking and entering.”
She received another fabulous grin. “I retired recently from another job. I worked for the government,” he said with a wink, and she realized how very little she knew about the man.
“Here’s the computer,” he announced, opening a cabinet and swiveling Dorian’s chair around. “Do your thing. I’ll stand guard. If I say someone’s coming, you get out of here immediately. Just get out and get back to my car no matter where I am or what I’m doing. Agreed, Merry?”
“Yes,” she answered, looking into his solemn gaze.
“Promise me.”
“I promise. I don’t know what you think I’ll do.”
“We don’t have time for me to tell you.”
She thought about the map that Sebastian had given them of all the offices on this floor. She knew the ninth floor held the accounting offices, but it was Dorian’s office and computer that she was interested in. She had spent an hour late in the afternoon with Jason, both of them studying the Wescott Oil building map while she had been more aware of him than of the map.
Merry slid behind the desk and sat down, at home instantly when she was facing a computer. She switched on the CPU, watched the screen ask for a password and began to type.
She was unaware of Jason watching her or of him slipping out of the office and leaving her alone. The only light was from the screen, a bright glow that reflected on her hands as they moved on the keyboard.
Merry knew she had only a few tries to get this right.
It took her five minutes, but then the screen asking for a password disappeared and she was in. She scanned the menu and pulled up a file.
Merry lost track of time, but her pulse raced as she discovered that Dorian kept an electronic journal. She scanned it swiftly, her gaze skimming over words, searching for anything that might incriminate Dorian until the words: “…you don’t want them to know…” jumped out at her.
The door opened and she looked around to see Jason. “Your twenty minutes are up.”
“I’m in. Leave me alone.”
She went back to what she was doing, unaware that he had closed the door and left. Slowing so her hands wouldn’t shake, she inserted a floppy into the CPU and copied the file, skimming more lines while her pulse raced.
The moment she finished that file, she copied another one.
The door swung open and Jason thrust his head inside. “Someone’s coming. Shut down!”
