A Matter of Trust Read Online Free PDF

I’ll see what I can come up with.”
    “Can you tell if someone’s been in here?” Michael felt violated just thinking about someone tampering with her work. “Figuratively speaking?”
    “Sure. Given enough time.”
    “And this ID chip—is that the kind of thing they’re using in some airports now?”
    “They call it biometric scanning. It’s pretty commonplace in highly secure environments, these days.”
    “So you could just install one?”
    Sloan was silent as she searched around in her tool kit for a temporary fix. When she had the intrusion detection program loaded, she looked up. “Absolutely,” she answered, an amused glint in her eyes.
    “And they’re completely legal for private users, I presume?”
    “Of course, and even if they weren’t...” A grin now.
    “How did you get into this?” Michael asked, fascinated by the topic, but more so by the woman, who exuded an intriguing combination of startling candor and secrecy.
    Sloan shrugged, offering her automatic explanation—all of it true, just not the whole story. “The Internet is the new frontier, and we are woefully unprepared to confront it. It is fast becoming the foundation of communication, commerce, even culture. And it’s wide open, lawless. There are no rules, no methods of enforcing any if there were, and few means to detect or deter crime. I saw the possibilities, and I had the experience.”
    “And you got that experience where?” Michael probed.
    “Cal Tech, then later...” she hesitated, aware that she was revealing things that she rarely discussed, “uh...industry.”
    Warning bells started clanging loudly in Sloan’s head—Michael Lassiter was easy to talk to, and even easier on the eyes. Oh man. Not good, not good at all. She shut up and concentrated on the monitor.

    *

    Sloan stretched and looked at her watch, surprised to find that she and Michael had been sitting wordlessly fifteen feet from each other for over an hour, each silently working. She looked over at her companion, unaware of both the pensive smile that Michael quickly hid and the fact that the CEO had been watching her for the better part of the last quarter hour.
    “Done for the night?” Michael inquired.
    Sloan nodded.
    “So, you’re a cyber-cop?” Michael asked, still curious and genuinely interested.
    “Hardly.” Sloan laughed harshly, thinking of how she had once been called that by condescending colleagues, another lifetime ago. “‘Incident response expert’ is the latest jargon. Mostly, I guess, I’m just a technogeek, without the glasses and pocket protector.”
    Whatever you call yourself, you’re far from that . It had been a long time since Michael had lost herself in conversation with someone when it hadn’t been focused on sales or development or some other aspect of her work. Perhaps as long ago as those early years with Nicholas, when they had stayed up half the night fantasizing about a world that was now coming to be. Had it been this easy, then?
    “Somehow I can’t see you in the nerd role.” Michael laughed.
    Sloan laughed with her. “You should have seen me when I was twelve.”
    “So this was what you always wanted to do?”
    Sloan’s immediate impulse was to change the subject. Her past was not something she discussed with anyone, even her friends, and she didn’t have many of those. She looked into Michael’s eyes, preparing for evasive maneuvers, and discovered something she hadn’t seen in a long time—simple interest, unaccompanied by innuendo or pretense. Often when women inquired about her personal life, it was a prelude to seduction. Not that attempts at seduction were unwelcome, by any means, but she had learned to subtly direct conversations away from revelations that could put her at a disadvantage.
    From this woman, however, the questions seemed merely friendly, and Sloan dropped her guard. There was no need to protect herself from Michael Lassiter, because nothing was going to happen between