17

THE LOBBY AT DEEP SEVEN MARITIME ENGINEERING WAS AN AIRY, HIGH- ceilinged room decorated with pictures of ships and chunks of vaguely threatening machinery, each accompanied by a small plaque. A scattering of bulky leather furniture and glass-and-steel coffee tables faced a reception desk ruled by a sixtyish woman with distrustful eyes who reminded Allie of the librarian at her grade school.

Allie sat at one end of a leather sofa, clutching her purse and a small sheaf of forms from TempForce, her temp agency. She wore what Erik called her “costume”—a conservative navy suit, simple black flats, and cream blouse that hid her tattoos. She had also dyed her hair back to its original mousy brown and pulled it back into a responsible-looking bun. Her look screamed “accountant” to her when she saw it in the mirror this morning. Depressing, but reassuring.

The first day of a new temp job was usually an exciting time. She was a spy setting foot in an enemy country for the first time—an undercover Jane Bond who had tricked her way into the heart of a malevolent conspiracy to steal taxpayer dollars. The contrast between her blah cover and her secret mission— spiced with just a touch of danger—was absolutely delicious.

Or it had been delicious until today. Sour fear and bitter desperation filled her now. She had been caught. That changed everything. Worse, it could easily happen again.

Blue Sea had caught her before she did anything suspicious. Something must have tipped them off before she ever walked in the door. Most likely, they had put two and two together and realized that an accounting temp who specialized in government contracting would be ideally placed to feed information and documents to Devil to Pay. Since all of the defendants were Bay Area companies, they also could guess where she lived and worked. And once they figured that out, it would be simple to have a private detective investigate anyone with those characteristics who came to work for them.

Unanswerable questions crowded her mind. How many other companies had had the same epiphany as Blue Sea? Had Deep Seven? Would Blue Sea keep their promise about not blowing her cover—or would they expose her as soon as she took out Deep Seven? Was there anything she could do to wriggle out of the trap she was in?

She wanted to talk to Connor. Badly. She had almost called him a dozen times over the past two weeks. But every time she pulled her cell phone out and rested her thumb on the speed dial for his number, the same fear stopped her: he would tell her not to take a job at Deep Seven. He would insist. He’d say that even if they were dirty, she shouldn’t play Blue Sea’s game. He’d tell her to fight them. Then he’d start plotting legal strategy and he’d have the case half planned before she could get a word in.

Allie didn’t doubt that Connor would beat Blue Sea, but so what? Her whistleblower career would be over and she doubted Connor could get enough money out of Blue Sea to make up for her loss. He could live with that, of course. There were plenty of other corporate dragons for him to slay, and she knew he didn’t need the money.

The problem was that she did need the money. And she didn’t need a dragon slayer right now. She needed someone who would make a deal with the dragon and keep it from burning up the princess’s dollar-printing machine. Unfortunately, that wasn’t Connor.

Besides, if Blue Sea did blow her cover, she could always tell Connor then. He probably wouldn’t like the fact that she hadn’t told him earlier, but he’d be furious with Blue Sea.

“Welcome to Deep Seven, Allie. My name is Janet Sheldon.”

She looked up and saw a tall woman of about forty smiling down on her. She stood and smoothed her skirt. “Hi, thanks. I’m happy to be here.”

“And we’re happy to have you. We’ve heard a lot about you.”

An icy finger stroked Allie’s spine. She looked carefully at the other woman, but her face revealed nothing more than a plastic HR smile. “I, um, thanks.”

“Let’s head back to my office. We’ll go over your paperwork, and I’ll tell you more about the job.”

Allie followed her back to her office. She took Allie’s forms and looked through them while Allie sat silently and tried not to fidget. Janet Sheldon’s office was a small, cheerful room decorated with children’s artwork and framed motivational posters bearing uncomfortable captions like “AMBITION—Create the life of your dreams with every choice you make!” A catalogue titled “Successories” lay on her clean, organized desk.

Three minutes later, Janet looked up. Her lips were pressed together into a bright pink line and there were little furrows between her perfect eyebrows. “Hmmm. Your work history shows that your most recent assignment was at Blue Sea Technology. Is that true?”

Allie had expected that question, but she felt her heart rate spike anyway. “Yes, is that a problem?”

“It might be. They’re bidding on a big project that we’re bidding on too—the Golden Gate turbine. If you worked on their bid, you might have been exposed to confidential information. I’d feel uncomfortable hiring you.”

Allie gave the answer crew cut man (aka Andy Duong, she had learned) had coached her to give. “I knew about their bid, but I didn’t do any work on it. In fact, once Trudi told me you had an opening, I actually called Blue Sea and asked if it would be okay for me to work here. They said yes. You can call Andy Duong to confirm that.”

Janet brightened. “Wow, great initiative, Allie! The agency said you’re one of their best employees, and I can see why.

Allie made herself smile, but said nothing.

“All right, now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s talk a little bit about the work you’ll be doing. Once you’re done with your orientation, we’re going to plug you into the team that’s setting up Quickbooks Premier files and stuff for our Golden Gate bid. You’ve done that sort of work before, haven’t you?”

Allie guessed that reviewing their files on earlier government contracts wouldn’t be part of her job description, but she could work with it. “Sure. I’ve worked with that software dozens of times.”

“Great. I’m sure you’ll fit right in. Do you have any questions for me?”

“Um, nothing I can think of right now.”

“Okay, then I’ll take you to meet with the head of our IT department. His name is Franklin Roh.”