“Hi, Katy, remember me from room six?”
She smiled as she corrected the stack of napkins. “Of course. Are you finding something you like for breakfast?”
“Yes, but I’m wondering if I can have a baggie?”
She glanced at me strangely for a moment. “What kind and for what?”
“You know those Ziploc ones. With a double zipper.” I don’t know how much rain Pelican Bay received at the end of June, but I didn’t want to take my chances of the thumb drive getting wet.
“Okay, but that doesn’t answer my why.” She had a hand on her hip and wore a loose light pink shirt over a pair of black dress pants. But her gaze told me she wasn’t as laid back as she tried to appear.
I held out my banana, coming up with the first thing that came to mind. “I want to put my banana in it.”
One of her eyebrows ticked up slowly, and then the other joined it. “You’re going to put the entire banana in a Ziploc sandwich bag?”
Oh. Right. “Do you have a gallon size?” It was completely overkill for the thumb drive, but if that’s what I needed to help her believe my story, I’d wrap it up a few times, which would help the waterproofing. “I’m going for a hike.”
She nodded once in slow motion, her head going up and then coming down as her attention fell straight to my feet. “In those shoes?”
“Yes.”
“They’re ballet flats.” She tapped her foot two times in the space between us as if I forgot where my feet were.
“Well, right? I’m going to change in to my hiking shoes in the car,” I lied.
Why did she have to ask so many questions? I hadn’t planned to go trudging through the woods and burying anything when I first drove out here, so I didn’t pack hiking shoes.
Things didn’t go as planned. I expected to meet with the super hacker, hand over the thumb drive, have him break the encryption, and then go back to my life the way things were. Now, that didn’t look like a possibility, so I had to stash the thumb drive. My plan evolved as problems arose. That’s what I did—changed plans, rearranged, and adapted.
I also still needed to answer many outstanding questions. Questions like, if I found someone to break the encryption, who did I give the documents to? The government? If Sean was right that they’d bring down the entire company, did I even have a job to return to?
Subconsciously I knew the answer, but admitting it might send me into an all-out breakdown, which I did not have time for.
I’d add it to my list, but it had to wait. No higher than number six or seven. A bunch of stuff had to happen first.
Then breakdown.
Katy tapped her foot once more and gave me a look to let me know she didn’t believe a word I said but also couldn’t figure out why I’d lie.
“Give me a minute,” she said and then turned on her heel and headed through a swinging door into the kitchen. When she returned less than a minute later, she held in her hand a large gallon-size Ziploc baggie.
“Thanks,” I said, making a speeding retreat from the dining room to avoid her asking more questions.
I was halfway finished with step one and didn’t have time to stop now. The bakery was a short walk from the bed-and-breakfast—frankly, everything was a short walk in this town—and I speed walked without looking like an escapee.
I tried walking in a zigzag pattern in case someone took a shot at me. It made my odds of survival greater. Thanks to the active shooter drills at work, I probably looked like a lunatic skipping cracks in the sidewalk, but at least I’d be a breathing lunatic.
Finally, I darted into the bakery and took a deep breath, releasing it slowly and sending up a small prayer of thanks that I’d survived the walk. That deserved something special. Like a cookie. And oh look, I was in the right place for cookies.
Trying to look like I hadn’t literally run for my life, I stepped to the counter with a fake smile and ordered a coffee to go with a muffin and cookie. I had to order the muffin, so no one remembered me as the chick who ate a cookie for breakfast.
If I died soon, I didn’t want people to remember me for my unhealthy eating habits. Yes, I had them, but I didn’t want to be remembered for them.
The woman behind the counter, who smiled way too big for the time in the morning, wore a pink apron with the word Anessa embroidered into it. She made my coffee as I ducked into the bathroom, leaving my banana on the counter.
Now I wouldn’t look as suspicious. Totally better.
I rooted through the box of tampons below the bathroom sink and found the drive against the bottom side where I left it. What was I thinking hiding it here? It had a recipe for disaster written all over it. The thumb drive would be safer buried in the woods. I stuck the drive in the plastic baggy, wrapping the extra plastic around it, and then shoved it in my pocket.