Don’t Love, Don’t Lose

There, he didn’t look so certain now.

“You can do all of that?”

“This is fairly basic, Mr. Malone. There’s a lot you can do. That’s why finding the starting point will take time, and it might mean nothing when you do find it. I would say that it’s something you should do because maybe you are dealing with an idiot. Even otherwise, I’d consider it due diligence. But I have something else that would come in handy.”

“Go on.”

Now he was interested. It was the chase, she realized – he liked that.

“What I’ve written is this software that looks like a scheduling app.”

He nodded approvingly, and she knew that he’d cottoned on. Good, so the man was not an idiot.

She hadn’t expected him to be.

“Something that nobody would question using if I asked them to, as a trial run before using it across my business.”

Jasmine smiled.

“It’s innocuous, it’s useful, and if I add a few special tweaks and branding, it would make sense.”

“But I assume it’s not just a scheduling app.”

“No, it will run a background program that runs surveillance. It will be invisible unless somebody decides to specifically look for it, and even then, they’d need to know exactly how to look. I’ve made some modifications that… You’re not interested in the specifics.”

“I’m interested in how well it works.”

Jasmine nodded.

“Of course. Well, it’s light, which it has to be. Any lag will make it suspicious. I assume you would never even consider using a scheduling app that doesn’t solve more problems than it causes.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Besides, if it’s heavy, they’ll be tempted to dig into it. I’m confident that it can stand up to digging, but we don’t want to encourage it, either. And the app will do the job it’s billed as doing, too. It’s a cute little thing, very sharply designed. I really should’ve considered doing this before.”

“Building an app for surveillance?”

Jasmine shook her head, aghast.

“Of course not! Do you think people haven’t tried to recruit me for things like that? I say no. I’ve always said no. And even in this case, you will not be able to replicate my coding for the surveillance program. That is mine, and once you have your proof, it will burn.”

She expected him to argue that point, and braced herself. She barely noticed that she had wine poured, and she had her food in front of her.

“What about the scheduler? Can we keep that?”

There, he had surprised her yet again. Jasmine didn’t think she would get used to that. She didn’t think she’d want to, either.

“We can negotiate. Now, I have my rates, and I need promises. And I need access. I’m not going to quit my job to work for you, so this will have to be done after hours and on weekends. And I have conditions. I will not let you have all the communication that I intercept.”

Now he really frowned. The man had a scary frown.

“Then what are you offering me?”

“I will get rid of everything that’s of a personal nature, and then turn the rest over to you. I’ll flag what I consider suspicious. That will make sure that you won’t waste time unnecessarily.”

She thought she’d managed to spin that positively for him.

But he was obviously not buying it, thought Jasmine in dismay as he leaned back and stretched.

“Now those terms seem pretty unfair to me, Ms. Turner. How would you know that the method of communication is intended to disguise this using a code that gives the appearance that the message is of a personal nature?”

He was mocking her now.

“I believe I’ll be able to see through that just fine. I’m not a fool, Mr. Malone.”

“I’m sure you’re not, but neither am I, Ms. Turner. Your proposal expects me to trust you completely and without reservation. It expects me to accept that you can spot any deviation from the norm. You don’t know my business or my people, Ms. Turner. That is not going to happen.”

Damn. She had expected to come up against that. Expecting it didn’t make it any easier.

“I cannot, in good conscience, agree to help you spy on everybody. They are entitled to their lives and their privacy.”

He shrugged as if it didn’t matter either way.

“I’m afraid we don’t see eye to eye there, Ms. Turner. They signed those rights away when they started working for me.”

She shook her head angrily. What an arrogant man! This was why she hadn’t wanted to do this at all. She’d known that he was arrogant and terrible like this.

“If the contracts you had your employees sign really are as restrictive as that, then you’re a terrible person, Mr. Malone.”

“I’m a successful person, Ms. Turner. Are you really as good as you claim you are?”

Jasmine shrugged and ate her crab cakes. She wasn’t going to help him.

“I am. But I’m not going to help you invade your employees’ privacy.”

He sat back and regarded her. She felt like she was a lobster in a tank, about two minutes away from being dropped into a boiling pot because he had chosen her. It was not a pleasant feeling.

She didn’t think she would ever eat lobster again.

“You’re hired.”

“But I just said…”

“You’re hired, Ms. Turner.”

Jasmine frowned.

“Well, you have to think about all possibilities, anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

“For the actual communication, they’ll be using a burner phone, I suppose. They wouldn’t use their own systems. Or any of their devices. That would be stupid. I assume you don’t hire stupid people.”

“But you said you can trace them.”

“I can trace the trail they leave behind, monitor their communication, and get a good idea of who it is. Nobody’s ever perfect at something like this. Everybody makes mistakes. We’ll find out who it is when they make the mistake. But we might not find out who hired them to spy on you. Finding the mole is one thing. Finding whoever hired the mole is another.”

He shrugged and sipped his wine.

“Don’t worry about that, Ms. Turner. I already know who is behind all of this. I just need to root out the rat in my operation.

She wasn’t going to ask. He wanted to make her ask, and she wasn’t going to. But now the curiosity was burning. She had spent so much time on this.

She gave up after about two minutes.

“Who is it? Who is out to destroy you?”

“Richard Sanders.”

Jasmine froze.

“Ruthless Rick?”

“So you have heard of him. I wouldn’t have thought that the two of you traveled in the same circles, Ms. Turner.”

Jasmine shook her head. Her mouth had gone dry.

Aunt Della hadn’t mentioned this.

It was no longer just an interesting problem for her to solve. That made all of this personal.

“I’ll take the job.”

A flicker of surprise, masked quickly and smoothly. She wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t been looking for it.

“Good. Now let’s enjoy dinner, Jasmine.”

She was Jasmine again, she thought numbly. She wanted to get away. She wanted a moment to herself. She wanted Rita. She wanted Aunt Della.

She wanted her family.

But she stayed there, and she made it through to the end of dessert, and she hoped that she gave him no clue of how much that revelation had affected her. She couldn’t afford to let it show.

“Lucy, come here,” said Jasmine slowly and picked up the cat that had come to greet her, looking vaguely disapproving that she had left at all.

“I’m sorry, honey. It was a strange dinner.”

It was strangely comforting to have the cat to talk to. For one thing, she wouldn’t talk back. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Jasmine realized that she was changing. She didn’t like it, but she couldn’t seem to help it. She had gotten a cat. She, who so carefully avoided all kinds of attachments, had gotten a cat.