No Test for the Wicked: A Lexi Carmichael Mystery, Book Five Read Online Free PDF

office without windows. I wasn’t one of them. When I was in the virtual zone, I didn’t notice any of my surroundings, so a window wasn’t important to me.
    A glance through the glass wall into the Server Room explained why Ron was a part-time employee. A school this well funded would certainly operate on a headless system. That meant most of the computer functions could be operated remotely by administrative software as needed. Ron could easily handle routine maintenance three times a week at a school like this.
    I stepped through the opening in the glass partition and into a significantly colder area. The servers had been stacked neatly in a tower, with one server rack mounted on the wall to the left of a long table holding a couple of laptops. A security camera mounted to the back wall could see most of the server room and the system administrator’s office. Beneath the camera in the corner of the room was a thin vertical cable closet, jammed with wires and cables. I took a quick peek at the closet and then stood beneath the camera, looking up.
    “Can you do a manual override of the security system from here?”
    “Yes.” He pointed to a desk in one corner that had been angled to have a view of the door. The table held two laptops. “The first laptop is tied in to the security system. The second one is for our phones. I can do a manual override on the security system from here and monitor it myself if I want. But I rarely do since I’m only here three times a week, and who has time to sit and watch a security camera anyway? It loads to a file that I can review later as needed. Right now we have nine cameras mounted at various locations in the school, including one right here in Computer Central. Unfortunately, it’s not directly tied in to our system, which makes it a pain for me to operate remotely. Most of the time, I’ll just call and request that the security company adjust camera angles or run routine checks rather than do them myself if something needs to be done on a day I’m not here. It’s the same setup with our phones.”
    I shrugged. “Kind of poor planning to have three separate systems, but in this case, it probably saved you some grief from the students. So far, no kids have hacked in to the phone or security systems?”
    “Well, we’ve had some trouble with kids setting off the fire and tornado alarms, but those controls are also available within our general system. So, no, not that I know of.”
    I tried not to smile. “Can you provide me with a laptop and passwords so I can have a look around?”
    “Sure.” He set up a laptop for me on the table with the security and phone laptops and got me started.
    “I’m going to help some teachers who’ve asked for assistance, so I’ll be back in a bit.”
    “Take your time. I don’t need any hand-holding.”
    “That’s good to know.”
    After he was gone, I logged in to the system and took a look around. Top-notch system with a solid firewall and good protection. Unfortunately there were a lot of ins to the system. A slew of teacher, student and administrator accounts, as well as general accounts from the math lab, the English lab, the fine arts lab, six different science and engineering labs, the weather lab and several computer labs. Ugh. This wouldn’t be easy by any stretch of the imagination. And I had a big imagination.
    I leaned back in the chair and flexed my fingers. Now came the real work.
    Fingers on the keyboard.
    Head in the game.
    Just the way I liked it.

Chapter Three
    The next morning I went in to work as usual at X-Corp. My sniffing around the high school’s network and system had given me an idea and I’d pinged Finn the night before to see if he was available in the morning. He asked me to come down to his office at nine-thirty. So, at nine twenty-five, I refreshed my coffee in the break room and headed to his office.
    His door sat half-open and he was talking to someone. I peeked in and Finn saw me.
    “Come in,