“Just go, Eric!” Daryl whisper-yells.
“Right, right. Going.”
The sound of Eric’s feet on a gravel path carries through the dark, and he knocks on the door.
While we wait, Amelia taps my shoulder. “Does Carter know where you are?”
“Ha . . . no. I haven’t talked to him since this morning. Right now we’re dressed like cat burglars and hiding in the bed of our boss’s nephew’s truck. Probably best to leave this part out when I tell him about my day.”
Voices carry from outside and we all straighten, straining to hear. The front door opens, and immediately we hear a woman exclaim, “Eric, honey! What a surprise!”
My heart is pounding in my head as I listen to their conversation dissipate and finally disappear.
“Okay,” I whisper.
Pulling the blanket off of us and sitting up slowly, I look around, making sure we really are alone out here. I’m the first to climb out, keeping low to the ground and watching around us. Maxine’s Mercedes is parked at the opposite end of the drive, but—thankfully—there’s no sign of Brad’s obnoxious yellow Ferrari anywhere.
Amelia is next, and she kneels on the ground by my side. As we both look around, Daryl falls out of the truck, rolling in the gravel.
“Smooth,” Amelia whispers.
“Sorry,” Daryl says. “I was kicked out of yoga.”
It’s strange being here without the Christmas lights and the valets, the holiday music and voices filtering out from inside the giant house. Instead there’s just silence, the chirp of crickets in the bushes beyond. Then, as we get closer, the faint tinkling of laughter coming from the direction of the house, the door left conveniently ajar.
Thank you, Eric.
A tiny sliver of yellow light cuts a line across the porch, and we creep forward, peering through the crack and into the grand entryway. All clear.
Glancing at Amelia, I press a hand on the cool wood, wincing when the old hinge emits a tiny whine as it swings open. I wonder if Eric heard it, because his voice grows louder and more enthusiastic from the back of the house.
A wide staircase unscrolls in front of us. I motion for Amelia and Daryl to go on ahead, staying behind just long enough to close the door with a soft click. Our tennis shoes are almost silent on the steps as we climb, carefully peeking around the corner before turning right at the top of the stairs.
At my side, Amelia holds up four fingers and points to a door at the end of the hall. Nodding, I watch as she wraps her gloved hand around the knob and slowly turns.
It swings open.
Even here, Brad Kingman’s office looks exactly the way you’d expect. His desk is huge and covered with books and piles of paper. In the light from the window we can see a bunch of golf memorabilia, and what has to be every award and accolade he’s ever received—right down to newspaper clippings—proudly displayed. Framed photos line his bookcases, all sharing a single common characteristic: he’s the star of each of them.
“Even his office is a pretentious dick,” Daryl says, closing the door behind us. Turning on her small flashlight, she shines it around the walls. “Is that a safe?”
I follow her gaze and then run my own light along the desk, stopping when I come to a bank of filing cabinets. “Do you guys want to look for the file cabinet key and I’ll start with his computer? I can try to work out his password.”
Amelia agrees and begins to search. Together she and Daryl look under books and papers, in drawers, and behind every photo frame, while I wake up the computer, the password prompt lighting up the screen.
I start with Brad’s name—first and last—then his wife’s, and every combination in between. I try his birthday, the number of Oscars his clients have won, even combinations of his name with his golf handicap. (Yes, we’ve all had to hear stories of his country-club valor over the years.) No luck.
“I think I found something!” Daryl says, stretching to feel along the bottom of a drawer. Having struck out so far, I turn to watch, practically jumping with joy when she comes away with a small brass key in her hand.
“What kind of person tapes a key to the underside of a drawer in their own house?” she whispers, moving to the filing cabinet and sliding the key into the lock.
“Someone who’s got a lot to hide,” Amelia says.
We hold our breath as Daryl turns the key, and the lock clicks in the silence. “And doesn’t think anyone has the balls to come looking,” she adds.
“Thank fuck,” Amelia says, flashlight in hand as she starts searching with renewed effort through files. “Anything that has to do with the names we found, tax ID numbers, web hosting companies, bank accounts, anything. If it looks shady, take a picture of it.”
I turn back to the computer, determined to get in. I try a few more random words and phrases I associate with Brad, and when nothing comes up, I think back. Brad is too big of an egomaniac to ever pick a password at random, so it would have to mean something . . .
A thought flashes like a thunderstorm through my brain, and I type the words together:
B R A D U P R I S I N G
It’s the film he worked on while I was an assistant—featuring the first client he flat-out stole.
Password accepted.
God, what a dick.
I search his hard drive for any of the companies that showed up in Eric’s program. I open his Google drive and search there, too. It takes a few tries but then bingo.
A spreadsheet with names of companies and tax ID numbers, next to column after column of billed amounts. And he had the nerve to lecture me about being a team player. Jesus Christ.
“Oh my God!”
I turn toward the sound of Daryl’s voice. She’s looking out the window with wide, horrified eyes. A set of headlights are working their way up from the bottom of the winding drive.
“Sh-shit!” I say, jamming my thumb drive into the USB port with shaking hands. “Hurry! Did you get anything?”
“I have some invoices,” Amelia answers, taking pictures of the invoices under her shirt to mute the flash. “This is a hot mess.”
Amelia and Daryl rush around the room, straightening photos and smoothing the rug, righting papers, and rubbing their sleeves to clear fingerprints from anything they might have touched.
I glance out the window again and then quickly back to the screen. How many times have I had to watch this in a goddamn movie and thought, Files transfer really fast, this is so unrealistic?
My file transfer is only seventy-three percent complete. But my panic is total.
Headlights move across the room and Brad’s yellow car pulls up alongside Eric’s truck. Come on come on come on.
“Are you done? Evie.” Daryl comes up and pulls on my arm, in the middle of a full-body freak-out behind me.
“Yeah, just . . . one sec.”
“Evie, we have to go!” Amelia says, looking out the window and to the driveway below.
“It’s at ninety-five . . . hurry upsss!” I hiss.
A car door closes outside. Voices carry from downstairs.