“They suspect me, don’t they?”
“I’m sorry, what?” Tara looked at her in confusion.
“Tim and Ryan. They’ve been acting weird around me for weeks. They said they were going to Chicago, but they were actually in Dallas. I found the hotel booking on Ryan’s email. He doesn’t know I can access it.”
“Umm, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do. You’re probably part of it. You all think that I’ve been selling information to the competition.”
“Have you?”
“Of course,” she said matter-of-factly. “Do you think I could afford these shoes on the salary they pay me?”
Tara looked at her shoes.
“These cost me five hundred dollars.”
“On shoes?” Tara gulped at the price.
Eloise sniffed. “Should have known you’d have no idea.” She looked Tara over critically. Tara straightened her shoulders. She didn’t give a shit what this woman thought. At least she was honest and worked for her money.
“So you sold information to buy shoes?”
Eloise smiled. “Not just for shoes, for my future. I’ve been selling information to the competition for months. The Henderson bid was going to be the final payoff. If only you’d co-operated and given me the damn laptop and pen drive. The information is on one of them isn’t it? I can’t find it anywhere else. I even hired someone to mug you and rob your place but they still couldn’t get their hands on them.”
“You hired someone to mug me and rob my place to get hold of these?” Tara asked incredulously, amazed at the lengths she was willing to go to.
“Yeah, too bad the guy I hired was a complete idiot. I looked everywhere else for the information. I have all of Ryan’s passwords. The fool writes them on a piece of paper and leaves it in his top drawer. I hacked into Tim’s computer but there was nothing on there either. So I figured you had to have the info.”
Tara just shook her head. “I never worked on that bid.” Not that she’d ever gotten around to looking at the pen drive. The information could be on there.
Eloise shrugged. ???Doesn’t matter anymore, I know my time is up. I have a new passport waiting for me in Mexico City. From there I’m going to make my way to Vanuatu. But I thought I’d do a little damage before I left, so I leaked some very interesting information out to our competitors. That ought to wreck Tim and Ryan’s business. The bastards worked me to the bone. They deserve it. Of course, I didn’t expect you to come in tonight.”
Eloise drew a gun out of her purse. Tara gaped at it in shock.
“Have you forgotten about the security guard? And the cameras in the corridors?”
Why the hell weren’t there cameras in the offices as well?
Eloise shrugged. “That dumbass? So I’ll shoot him and erase the last few hours of camera feed. No big deal.”
Holy shit.
She was delusional. Totally lost it. Did she truly believe that she could just shoot two people and get away with it?
“Is it really worth killing us? You could just tie us up and have the same effect. No one would find us until you were long gone.”
Eloise seemed to think about it for a moment. “Perhaps. But I can’t take the chance one of you will alert the authorities before I’m safe. No, too much mess. Killing you is so much simpler.”
Christ. Eloise was really going to do this. She was going to shoot her.
“I wouldn’t do that, Eloise.”
Tara turned to find Tim standing in the doorway behind her.
“Tim?” Tara gaped at him.
“What are you doing here, Tim?” Eloise screeched.