Кэтрин Коултер - Whiplash

She was so deep into disbelief at what she was reading, it took her a moment before her brain processed the sound of a car driving around to the back of the building, right beneath the big window of the CEO's office. She dashed to the window and looked down to see a big silver Lexus. It was Caskie Royal's car.

What was he doing here, late on a Sunday night?

Doesn't matter, he's here. If he caught her, she'd soon be wearing a neon yellow jumpsuit, PI license or not. She plugged in a flash drive, and ran into another password, this one corporate. He's here, he's here . No choice. She pressed Print File and watched as page after page flowed out of the high-speed printer.

She hadn't checked the file size. What if there were a zillion pages? What if what she needed to have didn't print out in time-no, she had some time, it would be all right. Even Mr. Royal had to stop by the guard in the lobby and sign in before coming up.

The printer stopped. Thank goodness there were only nineteen pages in all. She quickly slid the pages inside her black jacket, zipped it up tight, turned off the printer, slipped the flash drive into her pocket, and closed down the computer. She straightened the chair, checked to see it all looked the way it had when she'd come in, and hurried to the office door to listen. She heard voices at the end of the long corridor. Royal and a woman coming her way.

Not good.

It was time for Plan B. Always have a Plan B, her father had drummed into her head, and she had one. It sounded like they were arguing. She pressed her ear against the door, heard the woman say clearly, "I still can't believe you've made me a part of this, Caskie. What do we need it for?"

"Carla, the money is rolling in so fast there's barely time to even count it. They're looking at a windfall profit of about, conservatively, one and a half billion dollars. They've already racked up nearly a billion in sales in the last six months. And it's a freebee, like manna from heaven."

"It's unethical and you know it. And it's dangerous and illegal."

"Just back me up on this one, and I'll see to it you get a six-figure bonus in your pocket, Carla. And don't fret. There's no danger here, nothing bad can happen."

"But-"

His voice was impatient. "You gotta admit, with Culovort off patent, the profits are hardly enough to fill a nut cup. What is it? Fifteen bucks a chemo session? Fifteen bucks? Get real. It'll take the FDA so long to get their act together, we'll all have cashed in before the pressure's too great. And so far, you know as well as I do there's hardly been any pressure at all, just a letter of inquiry from the FDA and a couple of newspaper articles about the shortage."

They were coming closer. That wasn't good, but she couldn't help herself, she stayed at the door. What a bit of luck, good and bad. It had to be Carla Alvarez, the production manager. So Carla hadn't been part of it for long, but she wouldn't blow the whistle, either.

"Hey, babe, let's forget this stuff. You look so hot I can't wait to put my mouth on you."

Good grief, Alvarez and Royal? Lovers? She hadn't picked up a whiff of that when she'd done her research on Royal and his management team. Did anyone else know?

Carla said, "Maybe it won't take the FDA long to jump on Schiffer Hartwin. You'd have to be an idiot to believe the shortage of Culovort is just poor planning and-how did they put it-connected to an expansion of our production facilities? Couldn't they come up with a more believable excuse? Aren't they worried we'll soon be hated as much as bankers?"

They were close now, not ten feet from his office door. Any moment they'd be waltzing in, headed toward that big leather sofa. "That's the beauty of it," she heard him say, chuckling, "Even if it's our production and distribution labs in Missouri that are having the expansion problems, it's Schiffer Hartwin who'll get all the blowback, if there is any-and they're way the hell over in Germany. Carla, stop worrying about it tonight. We don't have that much time-"

"But what about-"

There was a whoof of surprise from the woman, the sound of scuffling, then a low moan.

She heard hard breathing, a suck-air kiss, and raunchy groaning. Evidently the time for business talk was past, a pity. She'd studied the floor plans, knew her escape route if disaster struck. Disaster was readying itself to strike in under a minute unless they decided to have sex against a corridor wall. She ran to the adjoining bathroom, slipped inside, and quietly closed the door again. She stepped into the glass-block shower and looked up at a small window near the top that had looked larger and lower on the plans. How the devil would she get up there? She heard the office door open.

Showtime.

She sucked in a deep breath and jumped. She managed to grab the windowsill with one hand, the window latch with the other, and pulled herself up. The window was cracked open enough for her to grab the rough stone edge of the building outside the bathroom window. She shoved at the latch with her other hand, but the sucker didn't budge. Not good. As her heart thumped louder and faster, she heard her father's voice in her head, "When you're butt-deep in trouble, you focus and you get it done." She shoved as hard as she could on that latch, once, twice. The window flew outward.

She eyeballed the opening above her. It wasn't very wide, but on the other hand, thank the good Lord and the gym, she wasn't either.

She heard Royal and Carla Alvarez fumbling with each other not twenty feet away, laughing, kissing, sex-walking, she knew, toward that sofa. She had to be quiet.

She got both hands outside, one on the edge of the outside wall, the other on the window frame, and pulled herself up and through the opening. She hung upside down, looking at bushes a galaxy away.

She heard Caskie Royal say something, then his footsteps coming toward the bathroom.

No choice. She wiggled through and did a lovely tuck into the bushes.

She landed on her shoulder, the shrubbery cushioning her fall, and lay there, breathing slowly, querying her body parts. She was okay, she hoped.

She turned her head and looked up. Would he notice the wide-open window? Would he wonder? Would he be suspicious?

With her luck, he and Carla would probably take a pre-sex shower. She heard them still laughing and talking, coming closer. The shower was small, but not that small.

She rolled off the bush, bent nearly double, and took off running toward the dark woods of Van Wie Park at the back of Schiffer Hartwin's American headquarters.

She ran faster when she heard a yell coming from the bathroom.

Okay, so they knew someone had gone through the window, but they'd have no clue who it had been. It was okay. The cops would want to know if anything had been taken. Royal would search his files and see the date stamp on the Project A file. He'd know someone had read it. Would he know it had been copied? Would he tell the cops? No, he couldn't risk it. On the other hand, if he thought it through, he'd realize that someone probably had those files, and there'd be no way to keep the fabricated Culovort shortage from getting out. There'd be hell to pay.

For that, she couldn't wait.

She hoped it scared the crap out of him.

If the cops were called in, they'd know only one thing for sure. The thief was a small boy or a female, because no male over the age of twelve could have squeezed through that window.

Once inside the Van Wie Park woods, she went down on her knees, sucked in air, and looked back. Lights now flooded the bathroom and the office.

She heard what she hoped was a cop car screech into the parking lot in front of the building. In that moment she knew the guard had called the cops, not Caskie. What are you going to say, Caskie?