Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 132464 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132464 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Louise blushes. “Oh my gosh, I love the sound of that!” She giggles. “Although, I must admit, Thomas is right—it does sound a bit like I run a soup kitchen in the South, doesn’t it?” She giggles again, reminding me of Kat for the millionth time. “Don’t tell Thomas I said he’s right, by the way—I wouldn’t want him to get a big head.”
“I’ll never tell.”
“Josh.”
I turn around. It’s Theresa.
“Jonas asked me to come get you. He wants you to join the interview. He says please.” She motions across the room to where Jonas is still talking to that same reporter. He’s feigning comfort quite well from the looks of him, but I know him well enough to know he’s dying on the inside.
I chuckle. “Okay. Josh to the rescue. Bye, Louise. Thanks again.”
“My pleasure. Keep us posted.”
“Will do.”
I cross the room quickly and help Jonas finish up his interview, much to his obvious relief, and when that’s over, Jonas disappears into the crowd to find Sarah.
I scan the room looking for Kat and spot her talking to her family—looks like I’ve still got some time—so I survey the place, searching for Henn. Boom. He’s talking with Hannah and Sarah, and when I catch his eye, I motion for him to meet me in a quiet corner behind one of the rock walls.
“Hey, man,” I say, bro-hugging Henn when he reaches me. “Thanks for coming today. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I wouldn’t have missed it,” Henn says. “Plus, it gave me an excuse to come see Hannah.”
“So, hey, man, do you think you could do me a favor? I need to find someone—get me dialed in.”
“Sure. Who is it this time, boss?”
I tell him the name of the person I want him to locate and everything I know, which isn’t much.
“Okay. Shouldn’t be hard. I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Thanks, man. As soon as possible, please.”
“Yeah, I figured. When have you ever asked me to find someone ‘whenever it’s convenient for you, Henn’?”
I chuckle. “Sorry.”
“No worries. Whatever you need. Always.”
“Thanks, bro. So what’s been shaking with you?” I ask. “Work good?”
“Yeah, finally finished working with the feds on our sitch. They’ve got enough to put the pimpstress extraordinaire into an orange jumpsuit forever, probably. Bye-bye, Oksana. Nice knowing you.”
“That’s a relief. Any sense there’s anyone else left in The Club organization we should be keeping an eye on?”
“There are definitely some heavy hitters in Russia and Ukraine who ran a big part of the show from there, but no one stateside with any real power—and certainly nobody who’d know about us.”
“Keep an eye on things, though, would you? Just so we know if there’s ever something we should be concerned about. Jonas is already starting to doubt his decision to leave Oksana standing—we should probably give him periodic assurances that everything’s still quiet.”
“No problem.”
“So what are you working on now that The Club stuff is all done?” I ask.
“Oh, I just did a really fun job.” He tells me about a large department store chain that recently hired Henn to try his mighty best to breach their own computer system for the purpose of testing their security. “It was awesome,” Henn says. “They truly believed they were impervious to hacking. They’d supposedly hired ‘the best cyber-security team money could buy’ to protect their data, but I dug around and broke ’em wide open in less than a day. I waltzed into my first meeting with their supposedly ‘expert cyber-security team—’” He snorts loudly with glee. “And I was like, ‘So, hey, folks, great to meetcha. Oh, by the way, I got into your piddly-diddly system four different ways from Sunday in about six hours—here, here, here, and here,’ and they totally shit their Depends.” He sighs happily. “God, I love my life.”
I chuckle. “And how’s everything else? Things with Hannah good?”
“Better than good. Awesome. She’s moving to L.A. next month.”
“Really? Wow. That’s fantastic.”
“Yeah, the long distance thing is killing us, man. And since Kat’s decided to put her PR company on the back burner for a while to become a mommy, Hannah’s decided to look for a PR job in the entertainment industry.”
“Awesome. Hey, you should ask Reed if he knows someone who might be able to help her with her job search. Reed knows everyone.”
“Yeah, I already talked to him. He’s on it.”
“Good.”
“So how are things with Kat? Have you two been nesting, getting ready for baby?”
I glance at Kat across the room. She’s dancing with Sarah again, wiggling like she’s got ants in her pants, throwing her tiny belly around with abandon. “I’m gonna ask Kat to marry me.” I pat my pocket. “Got the ring right here.”
“No shit?” Henn hugs me. “Awesome. When are you gonna do it?”
“As soon as you get me that info.”
“Ah. Interesting. What does one thing have to do with the other?”