His Alone (For Her #2)

“I know, right? I bet this bathroom is way cleaner than yours.” I crack a smile, but he gives me nothing. God, this guy is a stone. Not even a smirk.

“I need your help,” I tell him, finally getting his attention. The bored look fades away and curiosity takes hold. I don’t often ask for help, even though I’m new. It’s hard for me. Even harder when I have to ask a man. He stands a little taller, like he’s gearing up to protect me. “I think this guy is stalking me and, well…” I trail off, like I’m so frazzled I can’t finish the rest of my sentence. I wring my hands to play up the effect.

“Okay, I’m sure the team can find out—”

“No.” I cut him off. “This is really embarrassing.” I shift from foot to foot. “You see, we kind of had this one-night stand and I think maybe he recorded us.” Jordan’s eyes go a little wide at that. “He’s threatening to send the video out if I don’t go out with him again.”

“Are you fucking shitting me?” Jordan squares his shoulders like he’s ready to fight.

“Thing is, I think he’s bluffing. I got really drunk and I’m pretty sure we didn’t, you know…” I let the words hang once again. “But I’m not totally sure.”

Jordan runs his hands through his shaggy hair. “Give me his name and some information. I’ll check him out and let you know.”

That’s not going to work. I have to watch him do it. “There’s a time crunch, and he could send this video at any time.” I let my eyes go wide, playing it up. These guys never see me as anything but tough, so I know this has to be freaking him out. Maybe even making him uncomfortable. But I’m banking on him helping me. I don’t believe that anyone who can hack a computer like Jordan can doesn’t have some experience in illegal activity.

“All right, all right. I’ll check now.”

I rattle off the information about a guy I’d met at a bar a week ago with Mal. I give Jordan all the details I think he’ll need to track him down easily enough.

“All right, follow my lead, and if I find anything I’ll destroy it.” He pulls open the bathroom door and we both walk back to the main office.

“I’ll show you a few shortcuts I use for the recognition software. It can cut down some time when you’re short some info,” Jordan says to me as we enter the office. Everyone looks up as we walk in and then goes back to what they were doing. Everyone but Captain. His eyes stay on me as I follow Jordan to his desk.

He has more computer screens than any of us. Most of us have dual screens, but he has five. I stand back as he sits down, and I pretend to fidget with one of my nails, not looking at his screens, but at his hand on his keyboard. I surreptitiously watch as he types in his passwords. Everyone has three sets of passwords to gain access to their own computer. Each password is five characters long. It’s set up that way so no one can ever keep up if you type it in front of them. But I can without a problem. My brain takes in each hit of the keys, and locks the memory away.

“See, if you go in here…” Jordan says, as he does nothing of the sort. He says one thing, while he hacks away, pulling up this guy’s driver’s license and any information he can find on him. Next I watch him pull up the guy’s emails. Most are related to his job at an architecture firm; a few emails are from some date sites. When Jordan doesn’t find anything there, he goes for they guy’s phone. God, I hope he’s never done this to me. What does Miles use him for? I push that thought away and focus on what’s happening now.

I watch as he pulls up all available information on this guy. You really forget how much of yourself you keep on your phone. He comes up blank, like I knew he would. But that wasn’t the point. The point was to learn. To remember how to do what Jordan did. And I learned a lot.

“That should do it. You know the codes and how to use them. It will cut a lot of time for you.” I look down at him and he gives me a half smile, like he’s happy he couldn’t find anything, and guilt slices through me. But I block it out. I have enough guilt to worry about, and this small thing is one I can live with. The guilt I carried for my mother I wasn’t so sure of, because I’m not really living at all.

The thought makes me look up at Captain, who’s once again got those eyes on me. Maybe he’s never taken them off me.

Sitting back in my own chair, I debate when I can get the office to myself. That’s going to be the tricky part, but I shouldn’t be watched so carefully anymore, like when I first came back to New York. I was always with Mal, whose main guard most of the time was Captain. He’s going to be the hardest to slip past. I’ll have to do it in the middle of the night, but I don’t know how closely things are monitored here.

Maybe it will be something I can delete once I have access to Jordan’s computer. But what will it matter if I get the information I need? Do I want to get fired? No. But it’s a price worth paying for what I’ll be getting.