Chapter 37.

“Eh? Big what? Is that the only one I can get with the coupon?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t worry, it may be the burger with the most fat you can get with that coupon, but I’m sure you’re the type that won’t get fat no matter how much you eat. You definitely won’t turn into a Miss Piggy. Since you look like a Starvin Marvin and it appears to be your first time eating here, just for you I’ll even pay out of my pocket so you can get two and two free for the price of one.”

“Eh? Uh… okay?”

“Will that be for inside or to go?”

“Inside.”

“That will be $6.59. How were you paying, cash or card?”

“Uh… him.”

“Oh? Tch. Rich looking and you even have a boyfriend who pays for you? If I knew I wouldn’t have bothered to give you a freebie. Oh well.”

In a confused state she motioned for me to come over and forced me to swipe my card to pay for her. After waiting a few minutes off to the side for our orders, they called our numbers. The employee handed the trays over with an annoyed look on their face. We ignored their attitude and headed over to an open table to sit down and enjoy our meal. The entire time, my boss had a confused look on her face.

“Dio? Was I being complimented or insulted by her just now?”

”Both maybe?”

Jealous women are scary.

Normally I’d have a Big Mac, but after I heard what she was pushed into getting without being given much of a choice, I changed things up a bit and ordered a McChicken and Quarter Pounder with Cheese instead.

“Are you really going to be able to eat all those Big Macs?”

“Of course.”

“What did you get Dio?”

“How about trading with me? You could have tried out each one if you just read the fine print on the coupon instead of letting the cashier push you around like that. These are two other magnificent creations you can get with the coupon. Among the sandwiches, there was one other you can get with it, but we don’t talk about that one around here. If I had to say why, it’s like the child nobody really wants to speak of.”

Of course it was likely only me who felt that way, but my boss didn’t need to know about that.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

I took two of her Big Macs and let her take my two burgers in return. The two of us ate and leisurely passed the time with some small talk about our hobbies and the things we did in our free time. When she finished eating, she excused herself and said she was going to the washroom to wash her hands. She put her phone in her purse, but left her purse on the table instead of taking it with her. Before she left, she even boldly asked, “watch my purse for me. By the way, you better not have any strange ideas of peaking...”

When she was out of sight, with what she’d said, I glared at her purse with even more curiosity than if she hadn’t said anything at all. Based upon my past experiences, you could easily tell whether a woman was a psychopath just by taking a look at what was inside their purse or phone. This time, I really, really wanted to know beforehand whether or not the person I had gotten involved with was another psychopath. With my nightmare earlier weighing down on my mind, I knew this was probably the best chance I’d ever have to confirm it.

With a serious expression on my face, I checked around me to make sure nobody was looking while I stealthily unzipped her purse. I glanced inside and let out a sigh of relief. Everything appeared to be normal. There was a taser like she mentioned, but it wasn’t something I’d label an attractive business woman crazy for having for self defense purposes. The rest was very typical of what you’d expect of a beauty; makeup, perfume, breath mints, pens, a notepad, her wallet, and a lot of stomach medicine. Well, it was normal for the most part if I ignored the excessive amounts of different types of stomach medicine. However, I wasn’t quite convinced just yet.

I pulled out her phone and immediately tried to turn it on. I hoped there was no password set on it, but of course, I wasn’t so lucky. It’s a shame that the different glitches I was aware of to unlock her model of phone without the passcode were already all patched. The fingerprint scanners these days also wouldn’t fall for cheap imitations of fingerprints either.

The only thing that might be of use to figure out what the passcode was would likely be in her notebook. She seemed to be the type who had a lot of different important passwords to remember, so I put my hope in the fact that she may have written it down somewhere.

When I pulled out her notebook, written on the front was “Annual Report Notes: EGPI”. I was a bit confused as to why it was EGPI written on the notebook instead of EGRI. I wondered whether it was by some sort of oversight that she’d somehow missed a single stroke in the R for our company’s name. After all, the company was called Electronics Group Repairs Incorporated.

I chose to ignore that mistake for now as her notebook was the complete opposite of the girly type of notebook I expected. It was strictly business related and there were no cute smiley faces or doodles anywhere to be found. The contents of the notebook pertained to all sorts of information related to the financial situation of the company. Based upon the numbers I saw, it was clear the company had a bright future. Unfortunately for me, there was nothing that really screamed to me that it was the passcode.

I really had to admit though, if it was hidden in the mess of different statistics and numbers in the notebook, it would definitely be the perfect place to hide the passcode if you knew where to look for it. But remembering exactly where in the notebook you wrote the passcode down might be a bit of a pain without any sort of indicators.

Of course, that was when I thought of the mistake in the company name in the title of the notebook. Could it be that the mistake itself was a hint? Or was it just bait or a distraction? Well, this is just under the assumption she even hid it in the notebook to begin with. It could just be a wild goose chase in the end.

I only had so many attempts at the passcode on her phone though. If I made six failed attempts at the passcode, it would be game over. The sixth attempt would only be a one minute lockout which shouldn’t cause any problems. The 7th would result in a five minute lockout where you can’t attempt to get in again. If she returned and tried to unlock her phone and discovered a five minute lockout, it would be obvious what I’d done.

It really felt like mission impossible, but I was not a man who would back down from this sort of challenge. Queue the music please. Challenge accepted.