Chapter Twenty-Nine: Smileys
"How's that?"
"Heavenly," Grace moaned, leaning further into Hoskins' too-rough shoulder massage when every inch of her wanted to shrink away.
"People don't realize what sitting in front of a computer all day can do to your back," said the CEO silkily. He slid his hand up under her long hair and began to knead at the vertebrae just under the base of her skull. "Or your neck…"
Grace faked a groan of pleasure and scrolled down an inch on the computer screen.
Standing behind her, Hoskins chuckled. "I bet if your boss knew how much discomfort she was causing you, she'd let you off desk duty once in a while."
Grace scoffed. "Yeah, right. To her, I'm always going to be the rookie. I'm always going to be the one stuck at the computer while everyone else is out making arrests."
"She sounds like a bitch," Hoskins offered, moving his thumbs in hard circles over Grace's shoulder blades.
"She is," Grace lied.
She scrolled down again, and pored over the newly revealed contents slowly, making sure the CEO had plenty of time to look at them, too.
"I think she's totally wrong about this case, too," the young agent went on, trying hard to channel her most rebellious inner teenager. "We shouldn't even be here, disrupting your business. This was a mob hit. It's pretty obvious Paul Jorsten got involved in something shady, and then paid the price for it."
The CEO's fingers traced the sinews of her neck. "Well," he began thoughtfully, "it's hard to believe someone like Paul would be a party to something so sinister…" Hoskins leaned in closer, his breaths displacing her hair. "But then again, how well do we really know anyone, right?"
"Exactly," Grace agreed. She scrolled down.
The CEO's hands instantly tightened, digging down into her flesh hard enough to bruise.
Suppressing a wince, Grace began to roll the cursor carefully over each file and folder in view, one by one.
Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing—
"Didn't you say you were almost done?" he asked suddenly, just as the little white arrow slid across a document called "CB0409."
Bingo. Grace's heart lit up like a carnival.
Managing a bored sigh, she branded the file name into her memory and scrolled down again. Hoskins' fingers relaxed.
"Yeah," Grace muttered. "This is a waste of time. I'm just going to finish with this folder, then I'm calling it quits. And then maybe, you and I can go grab some dinner." She looked up at him, smiling beatifically.
Hoskins smiled back. "Sounds like a plan."
Grace reached out for the coffee one of the CBI tech guys had brought her. She took a sip and made an exaggerated face of disgust. "Ugh…Cold…" She looked up at Hoskins again. "I don't suppose you would…?" Grace shook the near-empty cup hopefully.
The CEO chuckled again. "All right. One steaming hot cup of coffee coming right up."
"Oh, and a Danish?" Grace added, as he started to move away. "I think the tech guys brought Danishes…" She grinned sheepishly.
Hoskins' smile melted into a leer. "Only if you'll let me steal a bite."
"Deal," she purred.
The CEO laughed and strolled out of the office.
Grace allowed herself a shudder before hurrying to retrieve the document that had caused Hoskins' tense reaction.
CB0409…
Two quick clicks, and the file sprawled open before her. The carnival dimmed a little.
The document was very degraded. Large blocks of text had been replaced with strings of nonsense symbols, and other chunks of data were missing entirely. The poor quality was definitely consistent with something that had been recovered after a bad hard drive crash. But how was she supposed to read it?
She'd probably have better luck deciphering something written by a Navajo Code-Talker. That, at least, would be a code. This…was gibberish.
Plus, Hoskins would be back any minute. Grace didn't want him to know she was trying to catch him until she actually had something to catch him with…
Right now all she had were long lines of smiley faces, number signs, and question marks, which began to blur the longer she stared at them.
Grace rubbed her eyes. She could feel fatigue dragging at every muscle, every bone.
The useless smileys on the screen seemed to wink at her, mockingly cheerful.
Jane was out in the desert, cold and most likely injured, waiting for them to find him, counting on them to crack the case, and she had…smileys.
Emotion started to rise in Grace's throat – a swell of childish longing for things to be fair, an ache at the thought of having to dig and claw bare-handed for every little morsel. Especially now, when a friend's life was on the line.
Why, just this once, couldn't it have been easy?
Her heart answered for her, in a voice that sounded oddly like Jane's:
Nothing worthwhile ever is.
Swallowing roughly, Grace blinked away the tears and got to work.
