I waited until the information came up. I pointed to the screen where an address for a business popped up. "Do you know this place?"
Phil came to stand behind me looking over my shoulder as he squinted to the screen. "It looks like a café."
All of a sudden my triumph dimmed. "A free wifi café?”
He nodded. “If we have a date and time, there might be cameras." Phil suggested. “We can see who was there around that time. Assuming we’d know him. Even so, if we got a picture, we’d at least have something to go on.”
I nodded in agreement. "I suppose the good news is that whoever did this is here in Hong Kong. It narrows it down to someone here."
Phil nodded. "I was a little concerned that perhaps this was coming from somewhere outside too. I’m not sure how we'd deal with that."
I dug the heels of my palms into my eye sockets. Spending all day staring at a computer screen had taken a toll.
"Let me see what I can find out about that café. It's nearly dinner time. You go home and get some rest. You look exhausted."
Checking the café was something I might've put Andi on, except Andi wasn’t here. I'd gone from excited that we were closing in on our hacker, to angry. She better have gotten some helpful information from Marcus.
Phil offered to give me a ride back to the hotel, but I decided that I wanted to walk. It was a distance, but I needed to excise my anger. I was so close to completing my task and earning my freedom. I couldn't let all these crazy emotions surrounding Andi get in my way.
But as I walked out the door, Andi still lingered in my brain taking me back to the first time I met her. I’d just graduated from college and convinced my family to let me take a gap year before I started working. I wanted to travel and see the world, and I got the brilliant idea of seeing the United States from the seat of a motorcycle. I bought a beautiful bike and immediately drove to Strong Incorporated to show my brothers.
As I pulled up in front of the building, there was a woman with long thick dark hair wearing a white gauzy dress that blowing in the wind. She looked like an angel fallen from heaven. So of course, I pulled up right in front of her, like Easy-fucking-Rider.
I pulled off my helmet and grinned at her. "You look like a woman who needs a ride." Inwardly, I kicked myself because it sounded like the worst sort of pickup line filled with innuendo.
She gave me a sassy smile like she thought the same thing too. But she didn't look offended. She cocked her hip, putting her hand on it. "I don't need a ride, but it might be fun to take a ride."
I laughed. I liked this woman. "Hop on."
She shook her head. "I have to be back here in fifteen minutes. So, it has to be a fast ride."
I think maybe my cheeks heated at her comment, which was weird. I wasn't prone to blushing. "Fast or slow, any kind ride you want, honey, I'll give it to you."
She let out a hearty laugh and so did I.
I held up my hand to hers to help her down from the curb. With her other hand she lifted her dress up along the loveliest creamy thighs I'd ever seen. She hoisted herself on the back of the bike and put the helmet I handed her on.
She wrapped her arms around me, and I felt a rush. It was different from the rush of the bike. It was even different than the normal rush I might have felt when meeting a woman. It was the type of rush that told me I planned to have many rides on this bike with this woman.
Fifteen minutes wasn't very long, but
I was able to weave through the traffic and take us out far enough that we could see the ocean.
My plan was to drive up Highway One, the road that went up along the coast of California. I wondered if I could convince her to go with me. Was she open to adventures? Hell did she have a boyfriend or husband, someone that required her to stay here?
The roar of the bike made it so that we couldn’t talk. That was something I’d remedy if I had more rides with her because my head was buzzing with questions.
Fourteen minutes and 59 seconds later I pulled up in front of the Strong building. I parked and helped her off and walked in the building with her.
"You have business here?" she asked me.
"Not business exactly. What about you?"
She gave a little nod and reached over to poke the button for the same floor that my brothers and grandmother worked on. Curious.
As we rode up, I watched her from the corner of my eye, thinking I needed to ask her name and find out when she’d be done so we could go for another ride. My brothers would wait to see my bike. They’d understand. At least Hunter would. He liked women like I did. Ryan loved work, and Carter’s obsession was travel.
The car arrived at the floor, and the doors opened. I held my hand out so she could precede me.