Cook, Robin - Shock by Cook Robin

Author:Cook, Robin
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf

TWELVE

MAY 1O, 2OO1 10:55 A.M.

AS ELEVEN O'CLOCK neared, Joanna had considerably more respect for people doing office work.

Although it was true she'd been working particularly hard to get the maximum amount done, data entry was more tiring than she'd imagined. The concentration necessary to keep from making a mistake was intense, and doing it day in and day out for three hundred sixty-five days a year was difficult to imagine.

At exactly five minutes before eleven, Joanna stood up and stretched. She smiled at her neighbor in the immediately adjacent cubicle to the south who'd stood up when she heard Joanna's chair roll back. The woman proved to be rather nosy and had made it a point to look in on Joanna periodically throughout the morning. Her name - Gale Overlook - seemed fitting to Joanna.

Joanna had given a lot of thought to her plan; she knew what she would do first. With the scheduled rendezvous time with Deborah imminent, Joanna grabbed her purse, which contained the brute-force cracking software, her cell phone, and Wingate's blue card. She headed down the aisle between the cubicles. Her destination was the computer network administrator's work space. Her hope was to find him in his cubicle and for one simple reason: if he was in his cubicle he couldn't be in the server room.

Earlier, in the midst of a minor anxiety attack about being caught in the server room, it had dawned on Joanna that probably the only person who ever went in there was Randy Porter. Consequently, if he was in his cubicle, she'd have little to fear.

A wave of relief spread through her as she passed his cubicle. He was at his keyboard. Turning left, she headed over to the main corridor. Deborah was there, at the designated rendezvous. About twenty feet beyond was the door to the hallway leading to the server room with its cardboard NO ADMITTANCE

sign.

"I hope your morning was as interesting as mine," Deborah said as Joanna came up and took a sip from the drinking fountain.

"Mine was about as interesting as watching paint dry," Joanna said. She looked up and down the hall to make sure no one was paying any attention to them. "Nothing happened, but then again I didn't want anything to happen."

"We got asked out to dinner at the Barn twice more," Deborah said proudly.

"Who asked you out this time?"

"Spencer Wingate for one. And he asked us out, not just me."

"Did you see him in person?"

"I most certainly did. He came by the lab to apologize for passing out last night and then pleaded for a rematch. I told him I was busy but you were available."

"Very funny]" Joanna said. "How did he look?"

"Not bad, considering," Deborah said. "I don't think he remembered much."

"That's understandable," Joanna said. "I trust the blue card did not come up in your conversation."

"Not a word."

"Who else was hitting on you?"

"The second invitation was from Paul Saunders! Can you imagine going out with him?"

"Only in a fit of self-loathing," Joanna said.

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