A/N: Thank you so much for all the kind words and reviews. I really appreciate all your enthusiasm. You guys are the best :)
Please note: This chapter is unedited. I will repost when Fredda has had a chance to read through.
M rating
Extra special thanks to my beta, Fredda (Rangergirl1234) for all her hard work, the name of this story and encouraging me to write. Fredda, you're the best :)
JE owns the characters, I'm just taking them for a test drive.
Chapter 36 Gaining momentum
We cleaned up as best we could with the tissues in my purse, got dressed, and switched seats again. Carlos continued our drive back to Trenton and I felt so much more relaxed. God, what a good orgasm can do for the soul.
I guessed I fell asleep because I woke up to Carlos taking my hand to his lips.
"Babe, wake up. We're home." I opened my eyes to see he had parked the Explorer by the elevator, in one of his personal spots.
"God, I'm sorry. I fell asleep."
"There's no need to be sorry, Babe. It was a long day. I'm surprised you stayed up as late as you did. Come on, let's go upstairs and get you into bed."
I nodded and Carlos got out of the car. He came over to my door, opened it and helped me up.
"Are you ok, Babe?" he asked, seeing me stumble as I took my first step.
"I'm good, just not awake yet."
"Want me to carry you?" he grinned at me.
"God Carlos, no. That would be caught on camera and I'd never hear the end of it. I'm good. Waking up now." And I was.
That was the last thing I remembered. I don't know if I washed my face or brushed my teeth, or how I got my pajamas on. Or even how I got into bed. But I woke up in my pjs without black smudges all over my eyes, so I must have washed up. Or Carlos helped me.
I was alone in the bed, but I smelled coffee so Carlos must have just put it on. I got up and made my way into the kitchen. Coffee was brewing, but Carlos wasn't there. I padded over to his office, no Carlos.
I guessed he went down to the gym and decided that would be a good thing for me to do too. I quickly washed up and pulled my hair into a scrunchie. I found my sports bra, leggings and sneakers, took my fob and my gun since I was supposed to carry it with me at all times, and went out the front door. The elevator came right away and took me down to the gym. Lula, Tank and Lester were on the treadmills, but I didn't see Carlos anywhere. I finger-waved hello to everyone and took my place on the fourth treadmill. "Have you seen Carlos?" I asked Les, who was next to me.
"He was in here when I came down about forty-minutes ago. I didn't see him leave. He's probably in his office."
That was a good enough answer for now so I upped my pace. As long as I don't have to talk, I can run a nine-minute mile, so I set the treadmill to 5.7 and started running.
I was thinking about the day and hoping I could get Manny or Les or even Carlos, if he was available, to sit down with Hector and myself so we could compile our list of questions for Peter Burg. Even if Hector had to write them out in Spanish and I had to make my way around the office, getting a translation here, and another one there, I was going to get that list together.
I was surprised when I looked down at the odometer. I had run three and a half miles already and I was still going strong. I figured I'd give myself another five minutes at this pace, then I'd cool down and maybe do some stretching. Since I didn't normally run for this long, I didn't want my legs to cramp up. After all, I had to put heels on in a little while.
I was cooling down when Hector came into the gym and walked over to the empty treadmill next to me. "Stephanie, Manny say he help. He be at your office at nine. Ok?"
"Thanks for arranging that Hector, I was going to ask either him or Lester."
"De nada. You're welcome. I see you ocho y media?" and he smiled at me.
Two can play this game. "Eight forty-five," I told him, more to have the last word than for anything else.
He grinned brightly at me, "Sí, ocho cuarenta y cinco." I gathered that was another lesson, so I nodded and smiled back. I finished cooling down and began to stretch out my hamstrings and Achilles tendons, and noticed that Hector hadn't moved and was watching me.
"Stephanie, want me to show you better?"
I gathered he had a better way to stretch out my muscles than my awkward stretch on the edge of the treadmill.
"Sure Hector," and he beckoned me to follow him over to one of the mats. He motioned for me to lie down, so I did.
"Ok I touch?" he asked pointing to my leg and crouching down next to me.
I nodded yes and he lifted my leg to his shoulder and very professionally stretched me out until all the cramps and crincks were gone. He did the same to the other leg and I felt amazingly good.
"How did you learn that Hector?" I asked, as these were obviously the moves of a professional, maybe that of a boxing coach.
"Mí padré, my father, was physical therapy, no therapist, in Bolivia."
"Is that where you come from Hector," I asked, as he was the one who started the sharing.
"Sí. Santa Cruz, Bolivia. My father, mother still there."
"How did you end up in Trenton?" I asked, now very curious.
"I follow gang. We arrested and I sent to live with mí padré's madré, my grandmother. We live in Newark. I no need to learn English, no one speak. I only in Trenton dos años, two year."
Wow, Hector was opening up to me. I had heard he was a badass, but I had assumed it was here in New Jersey, not South America.
"Thank you Hector," I said, thanking him for both the stretch and the information. "I'll see you in my office at ocho y media," I said, giving in to his earlier time demands.
I left the gym and went upstairs to shower, shave, do my hair and get ready for the day. I still hadn't seen Carlos and that disturbed me a bit because we always spent some part of the morning together. I saw that Ella had been up while I was in the shower and had left Carlos' usual breakfast of whole grain bagels, low-fat cream cheese and smoked salmon on a counter in the kitchen, so I assumed he'd be back to have breakfast with me.
I took a half of one of the bagels and made myself an open sandwich. I poured some coffee and sat down to eat when I thought I should do a little research before my meeting with Hector. I went back inside, got my laptop and powered it up. I googled 'what everyone should know about data security' figuring it was broad enough for me to find something.
Most of the articles were either over my head technical or just plain stupid, but I found one called 'Corporate Data Security is Everyone's Business' and started to read it while I ate.
It was a great article and exactly what I wanted to read for thought starters with Hector. It talked about common data stealing methods; breaking through firewalls, Trojan Horse viruses and the human factor. It also went into quite a bit of detail about less common stealing methods: people leaving their passwords out in the open at work, or on their smart phones. If you can gain access to just one password in a company, you maybe able to steal millions of dollars.
I bookmarked the article and left to brush my teeth again after having had that smelly smoked salmon for breakfast. I put on a white cowl-necked cami and a tailored blue-grey suit I found in the closet. I assumed it was an Ella purchase from my Florida trip and paired it with peeky-toe heels. I added mascara and lipstick and went downstairs with my new handbag loaded with gun, iPad, phone, ID and other necessities. I carried my laptop under my arm and sort of hoped I'd bump into Carlos on the stairs. I really didn't like starting the day without a kiss or a hug from my handsome fiancé.
All of a sudden last night came back to me. Carlos had asked me to marry him. Now I felt like I needed to see him to make sure he hadn't changed his mind. I'd text him when I got settled.
Hector was at my door when I arrived, so I opened it, let him in and put my stuff down. "Hector, two seconds. I just want to see if Carlos is in his office."
"He not there. I just come that way. He in a meeting with Tank, Bobby y Lester. Bad break-in last night at Bristol-Meyers."
Bristol-Meyers Squibb. That was one of the new prospect businesses Carlos wanted me to go with him to visit. If we acted right away after a break-in, we could pretty much ensure getting the contract. That's what was going on.
"Thank you Hector. I was a little worried because I haven't seen Carlos this morning. I thought for a minute that he got cold feet."
"Cold feet? What that mean?" Hector asked, probably never having heard the phrase before.
I guessed I was going to have to share. After all he just told me about himself.
"Carlos asked me to marry him last night. I thought he might have had a change of heart and that he was avoiding me."
"Change of heart? No, he heart you much. I happy for you. Nice."
I guessed that meant that Hector approved. I hoped he didn't have as big a mouth as Lester or this would be all over the office in no time.
"Hector, please don't say anything yet. He wants to take me to look at rings after we get back from our meeting at DataDependable this afternoon."
"I no say nothing. Is cool."
"Thank you." I opened my laptop, found the bookmarked page and passed it over to him. "Here's a blog I found this morning. Do you know anything about what it's referring to? Trojan Horses? Firewalls?
"Sí. I made a list. I try English, but we need Manny. I get mixed."
Thank God Manny knocked on my door at that moment, all smiles hearing that he really was needed. Hector took his list out of his pocket and gave it to Manny. I handed him my laptop with the Corporate Data Security blog open so that he could translate it if necessary.
Manny and Hector were speaking rapid-fire Spanish to each other, so I just sat back and watched the two of them, picking up a word like 'sí' or 'bien' every once in a while. But there was nothing that I could use to judge how their conversation was going.
Finally Manny picked up my laptop and read the article. He turned and spoke to me.
"It looks like you two are on the same page. Hector's notes talk about secure firewalls and using cookies and Trojan horses to dig for information. He mentions something about keyloggers. He says that keyloggers are programs that record computer strokes and send them to a remote computer. He also talks about password protection. If you want, I can translate his notes word-for-word for you."
"Yes please Manny, that would be great. I want to be able to ask smart questions. This article gave me a little ammunition, but I'm not going to be able to come off as an expert without Hector's notes."
Manny and Hector left my office with Hector's scribblings and the url for the blog I found. They were going to Manny's cubicle and promised to be back in 20 minutes with a compiled list in English that we'd both be able to talk from. How they were going to do that, I had no idea. But I trusted Manny and Hector to pull it off.
I took the time to read the search reports that I ran on Peter Burg, but never read. He graduated from MIT, so I figured that that made him a really smart guy. Why he'd choose to have his own businesses instead of working for a major corporation eluded me. But people have their own reasons for everything.
I also started searches on Leonard and Gary Eisenberg, the owners of PrimoData, the company my cousin Shirley worked for. They would take a while to run, especially on my antiquated laptop, so I went to the breakroom to see if I could get a bottle of water.
I bumped into Brett who was just putting something into the refrigerator. It was unusual to see Brett during the day, as he preferred to work the night shift.
"Hey, how are you doing? How's Lauren?"
"We're good. I just drove her to work and I'm waiting to see Bobby. I'm going to try to get myself back on days or at least I'd like to switch it up. Lauren and I don't seem to have much time to spend with each other the way it is now. I hope he's not going to be angry. The guys knew they could always depend on me to work the graveyard shift before."
"I'm sure he'll take that into consideration. You've been working nights for years. It someone else's turn."
"Thanks Steph. That was too easy. I wish you were the boss."
"Good luck with everything. And if I don't see you before, I'll see you at the house on Saturday. You guys are coming, right?"
"Yeah, we'll be there. I'm just a little nervous about meeting everyone."
"Me too."
"That's right, I forgot, you don't know them either."
"We can hang out together if it gets too scary. I'll see you later. I'm running a search and then Hector and I are going out to meet with DataDependable."
"Good luck with that. I'm sure you'll do fine."
"Thanks."
I grabbed a bottle of water and went back to my office. Carlos was sitting in my chair when I got there and it just felt so good to see him. I put my water down and went right into his arms for a long kiss and a hug.
"Mmmmm Carlos, I missed you this morning," I said, kissing him again.
"Sorry Babe, we had an emergency meeting. Bristol-Meyers had a break in last night. Someone stole thousands of dollars of computer equipment."
"Then they just gained access to probably millions of dollars worth of information," I said, remembering the blog I just read.
"Babe?"
"Take a look at this Carlos," I said turning my laptop to me, so I could get to the bookmarked article. I saw that my search was still running and didn't want to tempt fate if I tried to have this old POS multi-task.
"Let's go to your office, I want to show you something on your computer."
Carlos followed me back to his office and I used the same criteria to do a google search, as there was no way I was remembering the url. When I found what I was looking for, I turned his monitor so that he could read the blog I just shared with Hector and Manny.
"Babe, I think this information could help us not only win the security business, but possibly their data security as well. See if you can get either Peter Burg or the Eisenbergs on board before our meeting with Bristol-Meyers on Friday morning. I'd still very much like you to come with me when I meet with them."
"I know much more now than I did last week when I promised to come with you. If we want to show Bristol-Meyers that we are knowledgeable in the data security arena we may have to bring one of the heads, from whichever data security company we partner with, along with us."
"Agreed. So your task is to find the best one," he 200-watted me.
More than 20-minutes had passed since Manny and Hector left to put Hector's list into English so I kissed Carlos goodbye. Yeah, I really kissed Carlos goodbye and stopped by Manny's cube on the way to my office.
No one was there, so I continued to my space and found them. Hector was on my laptop and Manny was sitting in one of the guest chairs.
"Sorry, I just wanted to show Carlos the blog I showed you earlier. I was afraid to ask my laptop to do two things at once, so we went to Carlos' computer. What did you come up with?"
Hector produced a 2-page printout, in English. The headline was "Have a plan of action for when–not if– a data breach occurs." I was impressed already.
He wrote about what I just learned were the obvious way to gather data: weak firewalls, Trojan horses, planted cookies and keyloggers. But his second page interested me more. It was about how to prevent data from being stolen in the first place.
He wrote about full-disk encryption using hardware as well as software. Strong user authentication: who has access to what data and what steps they have to take to prove who they are. And lastly he wrote about back-up solutions and malware infections. I had no idea what that was, but it sounded bad.
"Hector, this is great. If we talk to Peter about his companies approach to these things you've brought up, and he answers, will you be able to understand?"
"Sí, I understand more than I speak."
"Thank you, Hector. I can't tell you how much I appreciate you helping out with this. I'd feel like a floundering idiot if I had to do this alone."
"You be fine Steph. People like you and talk. He'd tell you what you need to know. But thank you. It nice to be able to help Ranger."
"We should probably get ready to leave. Are you going to change and hide your tats?"
"Sí."
"Do you need help with the tats?" I asked, only because he only saw it done once and I play with makeup every day.
"I good."
"Ok, I'll meet you back here at one thirty. Unless you want to grab some lunch together on the way?" I asked, thinking how Lula and I would stop at a McDonalds and talk through our plan for picking up a skip. Although I really didn't want McDonalds…if we were going out, pizza or a salad would be better.
"Pinos?" Hector asked, obviously knowing the local lunchtime hangouts.
"If you want."
"Sí. Pinos pizza good."
"Ok, then meet me back here in 20 minutes."
Hector smiled and took off.
I finished my search on the Eisenbergs. Neither of them graduated from MIT, but they had pretty impressive backgrounds as well and I was still reading the reports when Hector came back. He was wearing his suit and had covered his tats. The suit fit him really well. He looked professional yet slightly sexy. I hoped when I told Carlos we were going out to lunch before our meeting he wouldn't get jealous all over again.
I threw all my crap in my bag and we took the long way, past Carlos' office, to the elevators. Carlos was inside on his computer, so I stuck my head in.
"We're leaving. We're going to Pinos first so we can talk out our plan of action over lunch. Do you want to come with us?" I added so he wouldn't think I wanted to exclude him.
"No Babe, but come here first."
I walked towards his desk and he got up. He pulled me tight to him and kissed me, his hands moving to my ass as he did. I gathered a good part of this show was for Hector's benefit, but I loved kissing Carlos so I didn't really care who saw.
"Good luck. Text me afterwards. Take your Mercedes, it's more impressive than a company car."
"Ok Carlos. I love you."
"Te quiero. I love you too Babe."
I turned around to head out, but Carlos called us back.
"Hector, Babe, I have something for both of you," and he handed each of us a package of black business cards. I knew from seeing Carlos pass his around that they were Rangeman cards. I looked at it closely and saw that mine said, Stephanie Plum, Business Director. I looked over at Hector's and it read, Hector Santiago, Network Security Engineer. They were both pretty good titles, even though I still didn't think I deserved mine.
"Thank you Carlos."
"Stephanie, one more thing. Please wear these earrings," and he handed me a pair of large circular posts with black stones in the center. "This one is a panic button, just press the stone here. The other is a camera which is activated when the panic button is pressed."
"How do I know which is which?" I asked, taking off the earrings I already had on.
"You can tell by the back, the panic button is flatter than the camera and is silver in color," and he turned them both over to show me. "See?"
I noticed the differences when he pointed them out to me. I also noted that when I was nervous I tended to rub my right ear anyway, so that would be the best place for a panic button and proceeded to put it on. I put the camera in the other ear and suddenly felt like I was over-dressed.
"Do I really need these Carlos? We're just going out on a go-see."
"I'm not going to be with you. And even though I know Hector is capable of taking good care of you, I don't want to take any chances. Please humor me, Babe."
When he used the 'please' word there was very little that would make me argue with him, so I nodded my head and kissed him goodbye again.
We took the elevator to the garage and I went over to my car and beeped it open. I could see Hector thinking about something and I got the distinct feeling he was trying to figure out how to ask me if he could drive. All the Rangeman guys are a little macho in that respect. I didn't want to torture him, so I handed him the fob and was rewarded with a 1,000-watt smile.
We drove to Pinos and of course got a table in the rear so that Hector could have his back to the wall to scan for threats. I was more concerned about scanning for Joe, so I was glad to have the mirrored wall behind Hector in my field of vision.
We ordered a pizza to share and I took out our notes again. I had my head deep in them when I heard a familiar voice.
"Cupcake, what are you doing here?"
I saw Hector reach inside his jacket. I presumed he was going for his gun, so I shook my head no before this turned into the gunfight at ok corral.
"Hi Joe," I said and got a quick kiss on the cheek in return. I saw Hector eyeing him suspiciously, so I introduced them. "Joe, this is Hector Santiago, he works for Carlos. Hector, this is Joe Morelli, he's a Trenton police detective and my ex-boyfriend." I don't know why I added that last part. I guessed in case he reported back to Carlos that strange men were kissing me at the restaurant.
"Would you like to join us Joe? We were discussing business, but we can put it aside," I asked, half-hoping he was too busy to sit with us.
"Sure. Let me place an order and I'll be right over. Meatball sub," he added, and winked at me.
"I don't like him," Hector said as soon as Joe was out of earshot.
"Hector, what's the matter? He's ok, I can vouch for him."
"I see he wink at you, he still care."
"It's ok Hector, I'm so over Joe it's not funny. I'm not even sure we'll be able to sit together without him making snide remarks about Carlos though."
"See, I toll, tell you, he still care."
I guessed a gay guy would be able to read another man better than anybody, so I let his comment wash over me. I was so not interested in Joe and his womanizing ways.
Joe came back with his sub just as our pizza arrived and I scooted over to make room for him.
"You look all dressed up, where are you going?" Joe asked after taking a bite of his sandwich.
"We're going out on a business call for Carlos. He's interested in partnering with a data security company and Hector and I are making some personal visits."
"So I guess you're still together?"
"Yes Joe. And Carlos asked me to marry him last night." I managed to get in even though I hadn't planned on telling him anything. "We're going to be together for a very long time."
"I don't know what you see in him," Joe mumbled taking another bite out of his sub.
"I love him Joe. And he loves me. Please, let's not get into this again. Can't we just enjoy lunch like old friends, ok?"
"Sure Cupcake, I'm sorry. When's the wedding? I can see Helen planning it now."
"There's nothing to plan. We'll get married at our house when the time comes. We haven't talked about a date. We just want to be together and my mother doesn't know yet, so please don't say anything."
"Don't you think you should tell her? If she finds out from the gossip mongers she'll be tippling and ironing for the next few weeks."
"We'll tell her soon. We have to tell Carlos' family too," I added so that he'd know that no one knew yet.
Hector and I finished our pizza and I looked at the time on my iPhone. It was one thirty so we still had a half an hour before our meeting but I was feeling uncomfortable with Joe and his line of questioning. Also the smell of his meatball sub was making me nauseous.
"Joe, we have to leave if we want to make our meeting on time. Are you going to stay? I can leave you money for our pizza if you want to sit here?"
"It's ok Cupcake, I need to get back too," he said and began to wrap up the quarter of a sandwich that was left, presumably to eat later.
I got our waitresses attention and gave her the black American Express Corporate Card Carlos had given me the other day. After all, this was a business expense. Joe had already paid for his sub at the counter, so once she showed up again we'd be good to go.
She was back with our check in record time and I told her not to leave. I did the tip thing in my head, added it up and signed the form. We stood to leave and Joe pulled me in for a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
"Ill see you soon Stephanie."
"See you Joe."
I watched Joe walk through the doors and get into his beat up surveillance car. Only when I heard it turn over and saw him back out of his spot did I feel comfortable heading out.
"I'm sorry Hector, I didn't expect him to sit down with us. We still have time to talk in the car before our meeting though, if we want to go over this one more time.
"I good, let's go."
DataDependable was located in an office building in Trenton proper. We took streets and parked in an underground garage across from the building. We both got out of the car at the same time and Hector had just fobbed it locked when I heard a whooshing sound and felt something stab me in the neck.
I reached my hand around to feel what hit me and heard another whooshing sound. I turned to see Hector pull a knife out of his pants and throw it into my assailant's throat. That was the last thing I saw before I blacked out.