With her luck, he and Carla would probably take a pre-sex shower. She heard them still laughing and talking, coming closer. The shower was small, but not that small.

She rolled off the bush, bent nearly double, and took off running toward the dark woods of Van Wie Park at the back of Schiffer Hartwin's American headquarters.

She ran faster when she heard a yell coming from the bathroom.

Okay, so they knew someone had gone through the window, but they'd have no clue who it had been. It was okay. The cops would want to know if anything had been taken. Royal would search his files and see the date stamp on the Project A file. He'd know someone had read it. Would he know it had been copied? Would he tell the cops? No, he couldn't risk it. On the other hand, if he thought it through, he'd realize that someone probably had those files, and there'd be no way to keep the fabricated Culovort shortage from getting out. There'd be hell to pay.

For that, she couldn't wait.

She hoped it scared the crap out of him.

If the cops were called in, they'd know only one thing for sure. The thief was a small boy or a female, because no male over the age of twelve could have squeezed through that window.

Once inside the Van Wie Park woods, she went down on her knees, sucked in air, and looked back. Lights now flooded the bathroom and the office.

She heard what she hoped was a cop car screech into the parking lot in front of the building. In that moment she knew the guard had called the cops, not Caskie. What are you going to say, Caskie?

She was grinning as she ran through the trees and out the back to the back road that led to the main highway that ran through Stone Bridge. No sex for the wicked tonight, Caskie.