Page 9 of Drunk In Love
We approach the reception desk to see a young, smiling woman. “Hello, who are you here to see?”
“Kamaya and Maxwell. We’re with Tri-State Security. We were supposed to meet with Zach, but he advised us to speak with Katie Lucas instead. She should be expecting us.”
After a moment of furious typing, the young woman looks up from her screen. “Katie will be over in a moment to let you in.”
“Thanks,” I say, turning towards the door where Katie should be appearing. I notice that, like our office, the walls are glass. No one could enter without swiping their badge for admittance. Unlike the glass surrounding our office, this one didn’t appear to have bulletproof reinforcements.
“Here she is.”
Max and I look over to see a spritely blonde woman holding the door open for us.
“You’re prompt!” Katie says by way of greeting. “Zach made it seem like you’d be here later.”
“We like to get to work as early as possible,” I say. “Maxwell and I just wanted to ask you some questions and won’t take up too much of your time.”
“Oh, it’s no bother!” she exclaims, very chipper, too eager to talk to us. “Let’s head over to Central Park so we can talk privately,” she says.
“Central Park?” Maxwell questions.
“Oh! Right.” Katie face-palms, laughing at herself. “I’m so used to calling the big conference room Central Park. See, all our meeting rooms are named after city landmarks. The conference room across the hall is Herald Square. Isn’t that neat?”
Maxwell and I exchange a glance, and I offer a nervous chuckle. Katie Lucas was…out there. Now I was doubting whether she’d be of much help.
Once the three of us were seated, Katie began speaking energetically. “I’m so glad you two were hired to help us with this. B2B, that is business to business, depends on large accounts too much for our content to be accessed for free.”
“What exactly is your role or position with Financial Journal?”
“I am the junior B2B sales manager, also known as Zach’s second in command.”
Katie twirls her wedding band around her thin fingers, waiting for the next question.
“As the sales manager, what exactly does your role entail?”
Katie scoots the wheeled desk chair closer before answering. “I’m in charge of a team of seven sales associates who go out to large-scale companies such as colleges, universities, and financial institutions to advise them on a group subscription to FJ.”
Max nods his head, encouraging me to proceed. “So, are you in charge of who gets access to the group subscriptions?”
“I make the approval of what kind of institutions are…worthy, I’ll say, for a subscription to Financial Journal. Once we have generated leads, I delegate my team to go out and pitch a group subscription. Once they secure the sale, I make final approval of the amount of approved accounts and the cost, of course, and then access is granted to those employees or students who fall under that institution’s group subscription.”
“Understood,” I say. “When did you start noticing that users outside that approved list had access to the FJ?”
Katie blows air from between her lips, twining the ring faster. “I didn’t. I was notified by IT that an IP address from City University, where we don’t have any business ties, was using the site through a log in that IT didn’t recognize.”
“What happened next?”
“I let Zach know once he returned from a trip to Yale, where he was trying to secure an account with their School of Business. He advised me not to worry about it and that he and Cecily would take care of it.”
Maxwell and I exchange glances again. We seemed to do that more and more lately. We’re able to communicate without uttering a word.
“Can you say with absolute certainty that no one on your team might have been tempted to set up a group account for someone, a friend maybe, and that’s how these non-subscribers were able to obtain access?”
“I’m certain no one from my team is part of this leak. In fact, no one working here at FJ would do such a thing, knowing how important subscriptions are to keep us going.”
This was the first time since meeting Katie that her smiling, happy-go-lucky veneer cracked. She appeared incensed at the question.
“It’s alright. I believe you,” I say, hoping to placate her. I reach into my blazer pocket and extract a business card. “If you can think of anything else, please let me know.”
“Or me,” Maxwell says, reaching to extract his own card. A figure moving past the glass-walled conference room catches my eye. The young man looks to be in his late twenties, and he slows down to watch the three of us.