Undercover Alice Read Online Free

do you start?’
    ‘Monday.’ I groaned. ‘I’ll need to get some new
clothes, appropriate for a personal secretary. I wore a skirt to interview so
he’s probably expecting that all the time now.’
    ‘So go shopping and charge it to that idiot Barry,”
Jen smirked at me across the table. ‘I’ve seen some simply gorgeous things in
Prada that would be ideal.’
    Despite Jen’s tempting suggestion, I spent Saturday
trawling high street stores for some cheap and cheerful options. I got a couple
of skirts and tops, and some fabulous knee-high boots that were on special
offer.
    Barry had been overjoyed by my news, although not so
far as to pay for any of my work things. He’d also managed to wheedle out of
paying my salary, saying only that they would make up any shortfall between my
‘new’ salary and my ‘old one.’ Generosity personified, I thought, bitterly, as
I laid out my new clothes on the dresser ready for my first day.
    I curled up in bed with my notebook and outlined a
brief strategy for my undercover investigation. It felt a bit ridiculous
calling it that; I was hardly infiltrating the Mafia, or becoming part of a
drug ring. I jotted down some ideas – I felt that getting close to Matt
Westwall would be key. If I could make myself useful, even indispensable, he’d
start to trust me and maybe let slip something I could investigate further. I
drew the line, though, at snooping around desks in the dead of night. Of
course, if I just happened to see something that maybe, just maybe, had
some interesting information on it, that was another matter entirely…
    I eventually laid my notebook and pen to the side
and turned off the light, after checking my alarm was properly set for the
morning.

Chapter four
    ‘And this is your office,’ Matt said, proudly, as he
showed me into the room beside his own, much larger, one. I looked around. My
own office, that really was a treat. No more sitting next to Hairy Harry and
his BO and having to listen to him belch and bellow down the phone at hapless
PR consultants. No more having my mug constantly stolen, finding it weeks later
in some god-forsaken corner of the office, thick with weeks-old tea mould.
    ‘Wow, it’s lovely,’ I said, truthfully, as I took in
the large window with a view over the city, the big, glass desk with flatscreen
monitor, and the chair that looked like it had more functions than my car. The
carpet was of the same plush quality as the room my interview had been in, and
I had to resist the urge to bounce on my heels on the springy surface.
    ‘Good, I’m glad you like it,’ Matt said, with a relieved
smile on his face. ‘Look, I’ve got to dash to a meeting so I’ll let you get
settled in. Feel free to have a wander around the place. If you get lost, just
cry for help and one of our IT geeks will rush to your assistance.’
    I laughed. ‘Okay. If I’m not here when you return,
send out the search parties.’
    He winked at me, and left the office. I sat down in
the chair and fiddled about with the various levers and cogs, almost sending
myself shooting across the room in the process. Dangerous things, chairs. Maybe
I should write a story on workplace injuries involving chairs. I took my
notebook out from my handbag and jotted it down underneath ‘Squirrels. Harmless
critters or menaces to society?’.
     Right, what now? I should be ferreting for
information; Barry would want me rifling through Matt’s desk but I’d settled on
a more subtle (and less ethically dubious) option so my main task was to get
comfortable and start doing the job I’d been hired for.
    I switched on the computer and it booted up to a
login screen. I leafed through the sheets which formed my welcome pack, and
found one detailing my username and password. I typed both in carefully and
clicked OK. There was a brief churning from the box under the desk, and then a
window popped up informing me my ‘credentials’ were wrong. I sighed and typed
them in again,