Girl Undercover 6 & 7: Emma's Secret & The Truth (3 page)

“Yep. It’s really quite easy.”

I gave him a raised eyebrow. “I take it you have practice?”

He gave me a devilish little smile. “You could say that.”

My thoughts immediately went to that
Washington Post
article I’d read about him, having been part of a burglary, but they were soon interrupted by Ian.

“If you can’t get in, just text me and we’ll use plan B.”

Plan B consisted of Ian showing the doormen his FBI badge and pretending to be doing an investigation in the building. After getting by the doormen, he’d join me and open the lock to the senator’s front door.

As we arrived, Ian paid the driver and we got out. There was a deli nearby that we went into. We had a good view of the high rise entrance via the deli’s windows. The idea was that I was going in first by tagging a tenant coming home; bringing the FBI into the mix could potentially create a lot of unwanted attention. After I’d gotten by the doormen and hopefully managed to get into Janine’s place, I would pretend to be a friend of hers staying at her place. Claiming to be Janine herself was too risky as the doormen might remember her having left for the evening. When I was inside her apartment, Ian would tell the doormen that he was delivering food to me, Janine’s buddy.

It only took a couple of minutes until an elderly couple was heading toward the entrance. We studied them for a few seconds. Then Ian hissed, “They’re perfect. Go!”

Agreeing, I hurried out of the deli and walked up to the couple that appeared to be tenants. They weren’t carrying stuff like flowers or wine that would suggest they were only visiting someone, not living there, and they also seemed comfortable with their surroundings. Thankfully, I was wearing a conservative top and jeans with cute flats that I’d changed into when finishing work; my look fit well with theirs. Walking closely behind the couple as they entered the building, I mumbled silent prayers the doorman would in fact assume we belonged together.

“Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Steinberg,” the smiling man who opened the door for them said. When his eyes moved to me, I gave him a nod and a shy smile, holding my breath all the while that Mr. and Mrs. Steinberg wouldn’t all of a sudden notice they had a human shadow.

To my utmost relief, I not only managed to convince the doorman we were together, but the elderly couple remained clueless about me as they continued deeper into the high rise.

As soon as we were out of sight from the front desk and before the first bank of elevators, I stepped away and positioned myself by the elevator farthest away from them. Not even as I was in their line of sight did the man and woman seem to notice me despite that they just stood there, not engaging in conversation. Even so, I only allowed myself to relax when I was alone inside an elevator. I zipped up to the twenty-third floor where the senator lived.

So far, so good,
I thought, exhaling a huge breath.

Now I only needed to get into the apartment.

The elevator pinged as I reached the senator’s floor and the door slid open, allowing me to exit. I scurried out of the car and soon determined in which direction apartment 23 F was. Fortunately, the corridor was completely empty at the moment. I hurried toward my destination and, within short, I found myself before a white door that said 23 F in golden letters.

Having made sure I was alone still, I stuck my hand into my purse to find the bump keys and the screwdriver. Before I could pull them out, it dawned on me that I couldn’t just count on the senator being out for the night. It was best to double-check by ringing her doorbell first.

I pressed the doorbell hard three times, then scurried around a nearby corner so that she wouldn’t spot me was she in fact to open the door. While hiding, I kept sticking my nose out to see if she was appearing. I let two minutes pass before I dared returning to her door, assuming she must be gone then.

Pulling out the equipment from my purse and ensuring that no other people were around, I got to work. I only had to insert two keys to determine which to use. I pulled it out a notch and then turned it to the right just a touch as Ian had explained. Grabbing the screwdriver that I held between my teeth, I tapped the key hard once. To my surprise, the entire door slid open.

What the…
Had Janine
forgotten
to lock the door? Or did she just not care to lock her door, thinking she was safe enough living in a doorman building? From what I knew of the senator so far, the former seemed most likely. Actually, neither option seemed likely; the woman seemed quite anal-retentive.

Throwing a couple of glances over my shoulder first, I pushed the door open all the way. It was dark and quiet inside the senator’s apartment, and it felt deserted. I ventured into her long hallway, closing the door behind me.

Well, that was easy,
I thought, smiling to myself as I searched for a light switch along the wall. I soon found one and turned on the light. I peeked into the bathroom on one side of the hallway and the kitchen that was on the other.

Tiptoeing farther into the apartment, I ended up in a quiet living room. A door in one of the living room walls had been left ajar. I assumed it led to the bedroom. I scurried over there and saw that it did, and that it was also empty.

I found my phone in my purse and texted Ian to proceed with part two of plan A.

A few minutes later, the intercom next to the front door sounded. I picked up the receiver attached to it and said, “Hello.”

“Good evening,” a cheery male voice said. “I have some take-out for your unit.”

“Yes, please send it up.”

“Will do.”

I thanked him and then put the receiver back in place. As I waited for Ian to come up, I checked the time. Nine twenty. If Janine was out for dinner and a play, we should have at least another hour before she returned, maybe more. But an hour should be enough. Looking around the living room, I spotted an open laptop on the coffee table.
Bingo.

There was a light knock on the door then. I hurried over to the front door. Even though I had no reason to doubt it was someone other than Ian, I still checked the peephole. There he was, wearing a dark ball hat. The hat’s brim, while pulled down low over his face, didn’t succeed in hiding his urgent expression.

I let him inside.

“There’s an open MacBook on the coffee table,” I hissed and indicated the living room at the end of the hallway we were in.

“Great,” Ian replied as we headed in that direction. “And great job picking the lock so quickly.”

I decided that I might as well let him keep thinking I was such a great burglar; no point in wasting time trying to guess why exactly the senator hadn’t locked her door.

Throwing aside the white plastic grocery bag in his hand, he plopped down on the black leather couch, putting the laptop on his lap. I sat down beside him and watched him push a couple of buttons on the keyboard that made the screen light up.

It asked for a username and a password.

Holding my breath, Ian typed the username I’d given him and marissa69 as the password.

The screen immediately opened up.

“Wow!” I exclaimed. “We got in.”

Ian gave me a quizzical look. “Why does that surprise you so much? Most people use the same username and password for everything.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.” I got to my feet and went to turn off all the lights just in case the senator decided to come back home early. Not that I thought that she would, but if it was dark, at least she wouldn’t instantly think someone had broken into her place and we’d have some time to hide.

Ian looked up from the computer. “Why are you turning off the lights? Didn’t you say she was out for the night?”

“Yeah, but she could always change her mind and come back home, right?”

Ian nodded with appreciation. “Good thinking. You should also lock the door. I think I left it open.”

I went up to the front door and pretended to lock it. It was smarter to leave it open as it had been open when I got there. Then I returned to Ian.

He was already inside the senator’s email account.

“Aha!” he said, grinning pleased. “Looks like they’re meeting at Le Bernardin tomorrow. I know that place.”

He pointed at an email from the senator addressed to several other people, some of them ending with .gov, which suggested they were part of the U.S. government. The email’s subject line said “Dinner May 19, Le Bernardin.” He clicked it open, revealing a message inside that was short, mostly reminding all attendees that the reservation was at eight p.m. and explaining the exact location of the restaurant.

He put the laptop back on the coffee table. “That was easier than I’d thought. Let’s go.”

“Wait,” I said, grabbing his arm before he could let go off the computer. “Let’s scroll through some of her other emails to see what else is in there.” Now that I had managed to get into the senator’s apartment and was staring at her personal emails, I’d be damned if I’d leave before I had scrolled through several more of her correspondence.

“Fine,” Ian said and brought the laptop back to his lap. “But let’s do it quickly. The longer we stay, the more we risk.”

No need for you to remind me of that,
I thought but didn’t say, just reached over and put a finger on the laptop’s touchpad. I began scrolling through the emails at a rapid pace. As they streamed by on the screen, I scanned each subject line for something that sounded interesting. Something that perhaps contained the name Ariel or Emma…

Right as I thought I saw an email addressed to a Marissa Reineman with the subject line “Emma Patterson,” the front door opened.

The laptop flew out of Ian’s lap and back onto the coffee table. A second later, the two of us shot to our feet. Pointing frenetically to the side of the couch that was farthest away from the opening between the living room and the hallway, Ian and I both dove behind it. With any luck, the senator wouldn’t look there when she came into the dark living room.

Holding our breaths, we waited for the light to go on in the hallway and her to continue toward us. But neither of that happened, and instead it sounded like she went into the bathroom that was immediately to the right as one entered the apartment. The sound of a door closing reached our ears.

We looked at each other and I could tell that Ian must be thinking what I was—should we stand up and sneak out of the apartment while the senator was in the bathroom? But what if she came out while we did so? Maybe it was better to stay hidden and just wait for her to go to bed. At the moment, no sounds could be heard from inside the bathroom, so we had no idea what was going on in there.

“Let’s go,” Ian hissed, interrupting my pondering for the best alternative. Taking my hand, he got to his feet, pulling me with him as he tiptoed across the living room. Fortunately, it was carpeted, muffling the sound of our footsteps completely. Suddenly remembering my purse that I’d dropped on a chair in the living room, I stopped to pick it up. Ian glared at me, but then he seemed to realize what I was doing.

Not daring to breathe, we continued into the hallway and made sure to step on the rug there, not the hardwood floor that might creak. As we passed by the still closed bathroom door, I noted that the front door wasn’t fully closed. A thin strip of light from the corridor outside seeped into the senator’s apartment.

A toilet flushing inside the bathroom prompted us to hurry toward the front door and exit the apartment. As we pushed it close behind us, we heard the bathroom door open.

Running, we took off toward the corner I had been hiding behind earlier and continued away from the senator’s apartment as fast as our legs would carry us. Ian stopped before a door that looked different from all the apartment doors and opened it. It led out to a stairwell. We dashed into the stairwell and down the first set of stairs. Neither of us stopped running until we were all the way down to the bottom floor.

“Why don’t you leave the building first?” Ian wheezed, supporting himself against his knees while catching his breath. “Wait for me in the deli.”

“Okay,” I said and pushed the door open. Struggling to breathe normally, I walked quickly past the desk behind which a doorman stood. I made myself smile at the doorman who held one of the glass doors for me so I could exit and hurried outside.

Five minutes later, I spotted Ian coming into the deli where I was standing by a shelf filled with boxes of cereal, pretending to be looking for one that I wanted to buy.

He walked up to me and took me in his arms. My heart was still pounding faster than normal so I let him, even snuck my own arms around his back to encourage him to give me more comfort. His warm, muscular body felt good so close to mine.

“Bloody hell, you make a good burglar,” Ian whispered into my ear.

“So do you,” I muttered back, once again thinking about how this just couldn’t be the first time Ian had broken into an apartment.

He let go of me then and looked deeply into my eyes, sending pleasant shivers up my spine. “Let’s get the hell out of here, Bonnie...”

I smiled up at him. “Good idea, Clyde.”

Chapter 3

We soon found a cab that would take us back uptown. I felt sweaty and disgusting as I was leaning against the back of the vinyl seat, my clothes sticking to my body. I couldn’t wait to take a shower at my house. Squeezing my purse in my lap, I was thanking my lucky stars that I’d remembered to pick it up in the midst of all the tumult in the senator’s apartment. If not, I would have been in deep shit.

Suddenly realizing that something might have fallen out as we’d dashed out, I opened the purse to check. I relaxed when I saw that everything was in there, even my phone, which I discovered was blinking. Someone had either texted or emailed me. I swiped my password pattern and saw that I had a new email from Janine of all people. Clicking it open, I noted that it was sent only a few minutes ago; around the time we left her place.

“Guess who just emailed me,” I said to Ian.

He stared at me. “Don’t tell me it’s the senator…”