Page 16 of The Geek and the Sheikh

Bugs lifted her hand to stop the elevator door from closing all the way, but she didn’t exit. Instead, she waited as the woman pulled off the sticky note Junebug had left folded on the door. The woman read the note, cursed, and crumpled it in her hand.

It wasn't her action that hit Junie hard. It was the woman's expression. Pulling her hand free, Bugs let the elevator doors close and stepped back when the woman looked in her direction. There had been anger on the woman's face. Not a normal mad, like making a fruitless journey kind of mad. It was a deep, colder mad.

Had that been RC from MI6? Were RC and Wells colluding? What had Jameel gotten himself into?

Junebug started when she realized that the elevator was going down instead of up. Panic hit her. She needed a place to hide. A place with a lot of people. A place like the Waterloo Train Station.

"No, if I'm caught, she could take me anywhere."

Tears burned her eyes. She had to find a place where Jameel could find her but no one else would think to look. She needed time to think, to plan, away from the hotel but not too far.

Dread filled her. Until she could do her research, nowhere was safe. Why hadn't she thought of a backup plan? Midnight always had a backup plan. Idella never went on a mission unless she knew all the escape routes.

"Excuse us, lovely," a cheerful woman greeted as she and three kids stepped into the elevator.

Junebug stepped to the side to give them room. Two of the kids had inflatable floats in the shape of a dog and a giraffe around their waists. The oldest child pressed for the basement level.

The kids were chatting excitedly about the hotel pool area. Junebug felt a sense of relief. The hotel pool area was perfect! She could hide among the families in a space that was crowded, and no one would ever think to look for her there!

"All I have to do is stay hidden until Jameel arrives," she murmured with a low groan.

"What, dear?" the woman asked.

"Nothing. I love the floats," she said.

"Hotel gift shop. Thank goodness for the pool. My poor hubby needed a nap after dealing with the London traffic," the woman chuckled.

"Where are you from?" Junebug asked.

"London," the kids answered with grins.

The woman rolled her eyes. "The hubby works for a large firm here. They are having a conference and since the biz is paying for the rooms, I told him we were taking a vacay. 'Tis heaven not having to cook or clean after him and the kiddos for the next three days. The kids and I are going to live between the pool and the dining room, aren't we, kids?"

The kids squealed with delight. Junebug grinned at their enthusiasm. She followed them out when the elevator doors opened. Across the hallway was a set of frosted, double glass doors etched with the word Pool on it. There were rules posted on each side. The oldest child swiped their room key over the lock to open the doors. Junebug continued to follow the boisterous family through the doors before she turned to the left. She followed the wall until she reached a spot where she could see the doors, the pool, and an emergency exit.

She settled onto a lounge chair, placing her backpack next to it. Minutes later, she was logged into the hotel security feed, searching for the woman she had seen. She needed to know where the woman was… and who might be with her.

She studied the replay of the woman as she walked down the hallway to her hotel room door and pulled off the sticky note. The woman was wearing a wide-brimmed red hat so it was impossible to see her face from the security camera angle. The woman stood at the door for about thirty seconds before she looked both ways.

Bugs enlarged the screen as far as she could before it became too pixelated to recognize what the woman was doing. As the woman entered her hotel room, Junebug froze the frame. Her heart pounded. She had left a message telling Jam-man's friend that she was sorry but she had changed her mind and would meet Jam-man in a different location.

Junebug startled when a warning popped up from her security program. In her haste to exit the room and then the sudden change of plans, she had forgotten to erase the security feed of her leaving her room, and now someone was accessing the feed just like she was!

Her fingers flew over the keyboard in a race not only to block the person, but to find out everything she could about them. Her heart was pounding as she countered each command a split second before the other hacker. Whoever the other person was, they were good.

But not as good as I am,she thought when she hit the enter key on the last script.

The cursor flashed and blinked on her screen. She and the other hacker were playing four-dimensional chess in a virtual world where the rules of the game could not only change in a split second, but her life was on the line if she lost. An intense adrenaline rush replaced her fear.

You're good.

The message popped up on her screen and Junebug's lips curved upward. She wasn't the only one who understood what had happened. She scanned through the blocks of code she had written to make sure that they were solid before replying.

Who are you working for?

She waited for an answer. A quick check showed that the connection she had created was holding. The signal was bouncing at warp-speed from server to server around the world. There was no way to pinpoint where she was at this specific moment.

Well, except for the fact I left a note on my door.

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