Page 25 of Drunk In Love
Even Charles Dennis expressed animosity toward Cecily. Was she a likable person? Not from what we’d seen so far, but unlikeable didn’t necessarily equal criminal. For her and Zach, bad vibes alone weren’t enough to go on either. Again, no real proof and dysfunctional family doesn’t equal guilt. If that were true, we’d all be in trouble.
My gut told me this was bigger than just some password sharing. That possibly embezzling or even fraud was the real culprit behind this. But who and how? How did Kamaya and I connect the dots? We were stuck with a bunch of puzzle pieces that did not fit together.
“Any luck?” I ask, coming back from the kitchen. I hand Kamaya her second cup of coffee for the day. She’s peering at several monitor screens at once. This many screens gives me a headache, and I don’t know how she does it. I admire her acumen and intelligence because there’s no way in hell I could do all this.
My main focus right now is keeping her out of harm’s way. I still didn’t like the idea that we were being followed, but I couldn’t prove that either. Manhattan was full of black town cars, and any number of them could be filled with politicians, celebrities, or other wealthy people. It didn’t prove that anyone was following us.
Though I couldn’t say why I felt this way.
At least I felt some assurance that staying with her in the apartment meant she had twenty-four-hour protection with me there.
“No,” Kamaya says with a deep sigh before taking a sip of the hot liquid. “I was thinking that maybe this was intended to be malware for Financial Journal. A way to give them some kind of virus or to hack into their system of payments. Looking at their client list that Zach emailed me this morning, it’s a lot of influential and high-profile universities and financial marketing firms. Wouldn’t it make sense that someone would try to hack into the accounts of institutions that are worth millions or even billions of dollars?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Of course it makes sense that somebody would do that. Have subscribers reported any missing funds from their accounts?”
“I asked Zach the same thing, and he’s advised that as far as FJ is concerned, nobody has expressed any unusual activity in their accounts.”
“So theft isn’t the issue. Whoever is behind all this was not interested in getting into accounts to access large quantities of money.”
“No, it doesn’t look like it, which makes me go back to my original thought that it’s a vendetta. Revenge to get back at FJ. The fact that only City University was given the credentials feels pointed. Like maybe Harry is behind this. Or maybe Investments Daily is behind this. Charles Dennis wouldn’t be the first rich man to hire someone to do his dirty work.”
The wheels were spinning, and I was trying to connect the dots that Kamaya was throwing out. Harry was our most probable lead.
“Do you think Harry lied about someone anonymously sending him the credentials and it’s actually him who was able to do this?”
“Well, the link that he forwarded to us was encrypted and asked for a passcode for access when I clicked on it. Whoever did this is really good. Now that the link has been opened once, it’s nearly impossible to get into it again. If Harry didn’t think to take a screenshot of the login credentials, it would have been lost even to him after initially opening the link.”
I shook my head. “In English, please?”
Kam laughs. “OK, basically whoever set this up did it in a way that would make it hard to trace them. All this proves that they knew Harry well enough to get it to him. If somebody did in fact send it to him and he’s not behind it himself.”
I smooth a hand over my short cut of hair. I can feel the tension headache forming as I try to keep up with all this. “I’m glad you understand what is going on with all this. This tech shit is crazy. The things that people can do.”
“Yeah, I love technology when it’s used for good. Unethical hacking and cyber theft, of course, is the downside to it.”
“I propose we wait until Brandon gets back and see what he advises on what steps we should take next.”
“Agreed. We’ll see what he says. Right now, we have several potential culprits. Jacob, Franco, and Harry are still real possibilities.”
And Zachary, I wanted to say but kept that one to myself. I didn’t think Kamaya was ready to consider Zach as a real possibility. Something was not right with Zach and whatever was going on in his department.
I head over to my desk, and I get a text that Brandon is on his way into the office.
“Thank God,” I utter under my breath. Finally we can get back to work, and I long for the opportunity to expose Zach’s ways to everyone.
“Look who’s back!” I hear Kamaya say.
I look up and see an extremely sun-tanned Brandon walking towards us.
“I missed you guys,” Brandon says, greeting us.
“Really?” I ask.
“Nah, not really,” Brandon quips. “Glad to be back though and see this place is in one piece. Any developments on FJ?”
Kamaya exchanges a look with me but speaks first. “Yes, quite a few actually,” she answers. “Meeting in ten minutes?”
“Perfect,” Brandon says, moving to his office.