Ava Gray - Skin Tight

As she stepped through the doors, she half expected ominous music or mysterious shadows, but it looked exactly the same on the other side. More interesting, there was another sealed door, down at the other end of the hall. On this side, they had set up what looked like a couple of computer labs, including servers.

But why would they separate their experiments from the equipment?

She supposed they might have more behind the wall that someone else maintained, someone in the labs. Otherwise, the workers would have to pass security checkpoints in order to log findings or use the computer stations for research. The first option made more sense, but she didn’t like what it portended. They’re doing something so secret, they don’t want to permit their IT people so much as a glimpse of it, even after contracts and NDAs?

Her unease grew.

There was one way to find out. She could ask Strong for a look at the personnel records of all the lab techs, including their résumés. If one of them had a background in computers, then they surely had a second network hidden behind those other doors. She was surprised nobody else in IT had asked about it. But maybe they liked getting paid too much for too little work and had all the natural inquisitiveness of dead clams.

With a shrug, she swung right into the first computer room. All the computers seemed to be networked fine. Internet access, check. Intranet, check. Intracompany e-mail let her send a test to Thomas Strong. She stifled a smile at what he would make of her cryptic text.

That left the lab on the left. In here, a woman sat, frowning at her terminal. She appeared to be in her midtwenties, brown hair, plain face. Her white coat said she worked past the second set of sealed doors. Mia repressed the urge to question her about what she saw over there.

“What’s going on?”

The other woman started, a testament to the eerie silence. When she saw Mia, she didn’t relax much. “I called in a complaint about the network,” she said, uncertain.

“And I’m here to fix things.” In more ways than one.

“What’s the error?”

“I’m trying to copy some research to a flash drive, but it tells me ‘file not found.’ ”

Oh, great. One of those. Greg said the problem was networking.

“Did you accidentally delete the file? Have you checked the trash?” She leaned over to pop open the folder, but it was empty.

“I’m not stupid,” the woman, whose badge read “Kelly Clark,” snapped. “That was the first thing I tried.”

“You did a search?”

Mia spent ten minutes helping the woman configure an advanced search with all the specific data she could remember, but the hard drive still came up with nothing. Very, very strange. The file was just gone, and it would take more sophisticated equipment than Mia had with her to attempt data recovery.

“I don’t understand it,” Kelly finally muttered.

“Does anyone else use this workstation?”

“Sure, lots of people. But I’m the only one who logs in under my name and password. My work should be private.”

Which made Mia wonder why Kelly wanted to put something on a flash drive. Was she taking it past the double doors back to the secret computer lab or out of the facility in violation of her NDA? Micor was setting off all kinds of alarms, but she wasn’t being paid to investigate inconsistencies or possible corporate espionage. If they had someone stealing secrets as well as money, they could pay her a second time to find out about it.

“If you remember when you’ve logged in, I could print a list for you. That would at least tell us if someone has gotten ahold of your password and deleted your data.”

Kelly nodded, her brown eyes glinting with comprehension. “Yes, I keep a log. If you could get me that list, it would be exceedingly helpful.”

Mia complied; she ran a search for the username and then printed a log of all access periods for the last sixty days. The lab tech took the list and got out her personal record. It didn’t take her long to find the discrepancy.

“Here,” she said, tapping the printout. “I took a personal day last week. But it shows I was in the system. I bet that’s the day my work went missing, too.”

“How much trouble will you be in?” It was really none of her business, but she had a prying nature, which was part of what made her good at her job.

That same trait had earned her a friend for life in Kyra because she wouldn’t leave the other girl alone. They’d shared such a short time together as neighbors, but they were fast friends by the time Kyra’s dad took her away again. Mia had cherished the letters that came after, her little window into the world, since her view never changed.

“I’m not sure. Yet.”

“Is there anyone who would benefit from making you look bad?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Kelly said abruptly, as if she’d realized she had told Mia more than she’d intended. “I’ll sort it out. There’s nothing more you can do.”

Thus dismissed, Mia went back to work with more questions than answers. That was going to cause no end of trouble, because she’d never been good at leaving things alone.

He read the e-mail twice.

It was rare anyone could perplex him, but Mia Sauter had succeeded again. In summer, the song sings itself. Not code, for it was comprehensible, unless there was another meaning in the letters. An anagram?

eel ensiform stings gunsmiths

eel ensigns misforms shutting

He wasted a good five minutes on them, each more nonsensical than the last. Next, he considered alternate languages, before deciding there was nothing to it. Then he tried to put it from his mind.

Failed.

Eventually he gave in to temptation and Googled the phrase, not expecting it to be so simple. But it was: a fragment of a poem by William Carlos Williams. He had no idea what he was meant to extrapolate from it, if anything.

He could hear Mia saying, Sometimes a poem is just a poem.

He knew he had a tendency to make things complicated, webs inside webs. It came from long years spent living in someone else’s skin. But when he looked at her, something inside him insisted it could be simple, elemental, just a man and a woman.

Before he could rethink the impulse, he replied: There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. Though she would have no idea he meant it as a compliment, she’d find the source faster than he had. Her problem-solving techniques were more direct, but no less effective.

That done, he forced himself to focus. He’d convinced the head of security that he needed access to the logs that said who went where, how long they stayed there, and what time they swiped in and out of the building. He said it was to verify payroll on the hourly employees, but that was a cover for his real interest. Sooner or later, he’d find someone interesting going into the labs, and then-

Oh, it couldn’t be.

Mia’s name practically leapt off the list. On staff a week and she’d already gained access. Dammit, he should’ve gotten a job in IT instead. No point in self-recrimination-he’d simply have to alter his plans. If necessary, he could tell her a portion of the truth. She was the sort of woman who could be inflamed by talk of injustice and cruelty, so a small portion of the truth might suffice.

There was no getting around it. He’d have to make use of her. He just wished the words didn’t summon such a luscious mental picture.

Her e-mail came in a few seconds later. Sir Francis Bacon. Though I do confess I had to search. Admit it, I stumped you with WCW. And so here’s another: O for a life of sensations rather than thoughts.