Chapter Three

The Thief

For the last year—fourteen months to be exact—the thief had implemented a brilliant plan.

He'd created a billing fee under a hidden code that charged customers between forty-nine and ninety-nine cents per transaction. No one paid attention to cents, but he didn't want a consistent number that might be easily seen in audits. When there were over a hundred thousand transactions a month, the money added up.

It was diverted into a blind account, and he had already transferred the first million into a secure off-shore account that only he could access. He wanted another million, which he would have by the end of the summer, except for one problem.

Jennifer.

The nerdy IT bitch had downloaded logs she should never have known existed, and he had to get her computer or he would be screwed. She was the only person who might be able to tie the billing fee to him. Ironic, he thought—he'd implemented his scheme right after she started working in the IT department just in case he needed a fall guy. And now his fall "gal" was his problem.

He had a new plan he'd already put into motion, and as long as Jennifer kept acting like her awkward, weird, jumpy self, it would work.

Ifhe could destroy her laptop.

A laptop she never left unattended, as if it were a suitcase full of cash. A laptop that had the best virus protection software on it so the virus he emailed her didn't do its job. Hence, he was here, sitting in an empty house, waiting for Jennifer to show up.

He didn't know why she had rented the house for a few days. He'd cloned her work emails and the message had come in yesterday, confirming the short-term rental, from Sunday through Thursday. Helpfully, the garage entry code had been included. His goal was simple: wait for Jennifer, release the nitrogen gas, and wipe her computer. He'd already cleaned the server at the office, so it was only Jennifer's computer that had evidence of his embezzlement. By the time she woke up, she wouldn't know what happened. Any suspicions would be just that—suspicions, unprovable.

He'd already set her up to take the fall. She was acting weirder than usual, so it wasn't difficult to drop whispers in the right ears that she was up to something.

Jennifer White was smart, but so was he—better, he was ruthless.

He looked at his watch. Four in the afternoon. He'd only been waiting for an hour, but already he was antsy.

Still, he waited. There was too much at stake for him to fail now.