Page 28 of The Rough Ride (Sanctuary, Inc. #3)

T hank goodness for packed restrooms.

Illusia sat in her car with the air conditioning on full blast, guzzling a coke.

She’d tossed her brother’s hoodie into the trunk where it awaited a good wash.

Today was way too hot to be tromping around a zoo wearing the winter-weight sweatshirt, but security cameras lurked everywhere in this place.

She couldn’t risk her face on camera, just in case.

It had been the longest day ever. She’d followed Liz since that morning when her car pulled out of the driveway.

The tang of victory was still fresh in her mind at the luck of it all.

Liz Nelson rarely left the house, except to go to work.

Yeah, it’d sucked to shell out the forty-five dollars for admission to the freaking zoo, but it had paid off big time.

She’d stayed twenty paces behind Liz and her kid all day, waiting for the chance to nab her phone. Ever since Liz’s workplace went dark and the server shut down last week, she’d needed an access point to get back in. DHS had shored it up like Fort Knox .

Of course, she could hack in. She could breach anything, anywhere, but instead, she’d used her time wisely and invented a new worm that would remain undetected for several weeks. Once her little Liz project ended, she’d sell it on the black market, and then to hell with going to work every day.

All Illusia had needed to do was install the new program on Liz’s phone. Once Liz stowed her purse and phone in the security area at work, it’d be a cinch to access a portal. It was so much smarter than chipping away at the dozens of security measures from the outside.

She’d been right behind Liz in the bird house, feeling Liz’s pockets when Liz shot the video of the bird on her finger. Illusia ducked out of the way fast to avoid being in the picture and saw Liz slide the phone into the stroller pocket.

Seriously. Her luck was on the rise. She ought to buy a lottery ticket on the way home.

Illusia grinned at the memory of Liz ditching that stroller outside the restroom.

It was sitting right there for the taking.

Illusia had waited for the door to close and nonchalantly rolled the stroller off the grass patch and pushed it into the flow of traffic.

Then she’d found an unoccupied bench about a mile away and installed the program.

And just in case someone discovered the worm, she’d left the tiniest reference to SecureIT, so Nick’s company would take the fall in the event of any backlash. As far as she was concerned, there weren’t enough nasty paybacks in hell for a man who called out another woman’s name during playtime.

The shame of it all? That little baby was all smiles and chubby fingers. It kind of hurt her heart that the kid would grow up without a mother like Illusia had, but that was the problem with Liz having been the command leader on a mission gone wrong.

At some point, heads had to roll.

Sorry, Liz.