by Natalie Ann
“How are things with Mom?” Nick asked the next day at the office.
His father shrugged and looked away. “Don’t worry about it.”
“I am though. As much as I was shocked to find out she knew, I can understand why she kept it from me. I can’t understand why she kept it from you.”
“She had her reasons.”
His father wasn’t making eye contact with him and he was starting to worry that things were worse in their marriage than he’d ever imagined they could be. He’d never known his father to act this way toward his mother, yet what she did might be unforgivable.
“Did she tell you what they were?”
“She did.”
Nick looked at his father’s tired face and felt sympathy for him, and anger at his mother at the same time. He was torn. He knew he would be. This whole situation wasn’t just hard on him or Mallory, it could potentially destroy his whole family—everyone he cared for in his life.
“You’re not going to share it though, are you?”
“No, I’m not.” His father turned his back on him and walked over to Nick’s desk and pulled up a file. “We’ve got other things to discuss today. Did you tell Zach you were in town?”
“No. With everything that has gone on in the last twenty-four hours, I forgot. I came in first thing hoping to catch him early.”
“I’d like to talk to both of you this morning then.”
“What’s this about?” Nick asked, not liking the look on his father’s face again.
He’d never known his father to be so cryptic about things. His father was always the happier one in the house, much like Rene. Lighthearted, and never stressed. Today, though, he wasn’t acting anything at all like himself.
“I’ll explain it all later.”
Later turned out to be thirty minutes when Zach walked into Nick’s office expecting to see John and instead saw Nick behind his desk, his father sitting in the conference room.
“Dude, what are you doing here? Since when do you show up without telling me?”
“It was last minute,” Nick said, smiling and enjoying the surprise and happiness on Zach’s face. He missed a lot of things being in Lake Placid, and Zach was definitely one of those things.
“Are you back for good?” Zach moved forward and sat in the chair across from Nick’s desk, propping one loafer on his designer jeans.
“No.”
“Seriously? What is going on? Yes, you’re making progress on the software, I get that. But I don’t understand why you have to work there.”
Nick knew he had to tell Zach. He knew he could right now too…the question was, how much would he tell him?
“There is someone I’m going back to.”
“I knew it!” Zach said, laughing. “You’re hooking up with someone there. Good for you; get it out of your system. A little rebound sex is good for the soul.”
As much as he didn’t want to be annoyed over what Zach had said, he still was. He didn’t want anyone thinking of Mallory as a rebound for him. He’d prefer to think of her as his first, and now his second chance. Again he couldn’t really explain that in full detail just yet.
“It’s not like that.”
“What’s it like then? No one would think badly about it if it was that.”
“It’s serious. And she isn’t someone I just met. Rather someone I’m reconnecting with.”
“In Lake Placid? Like someone you knew growing up?” Zach asked, looking curious.
“Something like that. I’ll tell you more in a few days. But right now, my father said he needs to see us both. Do you know what it’s about?”
“No. Actually I was going to call you today. Your father has been acting really strange lately. I’m not sure what is going on.”
Nick didn’t like the sound of that. He was hoping his father’s behavior this morning was a result of Mallory showing up, but now he knew there had to be more to it.
“Strange how?”
“Secretive. He’s got the door closed a lot, tons of phone calls and meetings with people I’ve never heard of. When I question him, he brushes me off. I was going to call and see if I could wiggle out some information from you today. I didn’t know if there was some hush-hush project coming up. Or maybe John is trying to find a way to fire me,” Zach said, laughing.
“Never that. And no, I don’t know what is going on. But let’s find out.”
Nick picked up the phone and called the conference room. His father had told him there was a temporary assistant filling in, but she hadn’t shown up for work yet. Right now the three of them were alone on this floor.
“Dad, Zach’s here when you’re ready.”
A minute later his father walked in and shut the door, a grim expression on his face.
“Zach says you’ve been in a lot of meetings and on a ton of calls. What’s going on?”
“So Zach’s a little snitch now,” his father said, his lips twitching, showing signs of the man Nick had always known.
“You know me,” Zach said, bantering with his father. “I’ve got to have my finger on every pulse in the company. You weren’t giving me anything, so why not go to the top? Only he is clueless, too.”
His father sat down on the couch and said, “Why don’t you two come over here and get comfortable.”
Zach and he got up and sat in the chairs facing the couch his father was on, then reached for the papers his father had pushed toward them on the small table in the center of the seating area. “What’s this?”
“Just look it over. You tell me what you think it is,” his father explained.
“It looks like a report of corrupt files,” Nick said. “When did this happen? Why wasn’t I told?”
“Why wasn’t I told either?” Zach said. “I hear everything. I run the operations of this company.”
Nick wasn’t used to seeing Zach lose his easygoing nature, but this was the Zach Nick hired all those years ago. The one that could get to the bottom of anything, no matter the means.
“Dad, you want to explain?”
“I wasn’t sure what was going on. I didn’t want to bring it up and draw attention to anything until I knew for sure. Zach, I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d go back to Nick and he needed time to decompress and not worry about this.”
“I didn’t need to be handled with kid gloves,” Nick said, complaining. “Anyway, what’s going on? There are corrupt files on the server. Is there a bug, a virus, something?”
“Not that. At least not that I could see or figure out when I talked to IT.”
“These are the same files that have come up empty,” Zach said. “I recognized some of them. I’ve gone into them and found nothing. The files are there, but nothing is in them, or only half of what should be. Nick, down on the list is the file of the patch I called you about weeks ago.”
“I knew I put it on the server. I wasn’t losing my mind. I wasn’t too worried though, because I had a backup at home. Still, is someone deleting files? Stealing files?” Nick asked, the possibility of it burning his blood.
His staff was screened tight. NB Innovations had a lot of competitors and very few people had access or security clearance to all files. Almost no programmers or developers had complete access to anything. Bits and pieces, but not the whole. Only a select few had that. Three of those people were in this room.
“At first I thought it was files being moved. Just honest mistakes. Then more and more started to disappear. I started to look for a pattern, but there wasn’t one. Then all of a sudden, three files showed up empty in a short period of time rather than spread out.”
“When?” Nick asked.
“When you were in town last. The day you showed up and the next day. Then it stopped. There haven’t been any problems since,” John said.
“What files went missing?” Zach asked. “Anything that could be sold to competitors?”
“Bits and pieces of things from different departments, but nothing that could be put together that I could fig
ure out. That is what I need you two for.”
Nick looked over the list again. “There is nothing here that makes sense. It’s all random files. My patch was the only thing that might have had value to someone, but even then it won’t be useful.”
“Why?” his father asked.
“Because I realized the first file I uploaded was missing some code. I’d left it out by mistake. Part of the reason I wasn’t too worried about it. I sent the full code the second time. The first file would have never worked anyway.”
“Which is how I figured it all out,” his father said.
“Figured what out? Who is it?”
“It was Kendra.”
“What?!” Nick sat up, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach. “She’s been stealing information from me and giving it to my competitors? Or at least trying to?”
“No,” his father said. “At least not at first, I don’t think.”
“She was trying to make headaches for him by deleting files, wasn’t she?” Zach asked. “Katherine had mentioned to me that Kendra was in places she shouldn’t have been. Looking at things she shouldn’t be and even sitting at other’s desks. Is that it?”
“Yeah. That’s my guess. Random files would just be deleted. The funny part was, Kendra didn’t realize the files were backed up on multiple sources.” His father laughed a little. “I didn’t believe she was that stupid, but I guess she was.”
“She knew there were daily backups,” Nick said. “But she didn’t know that we rotated weekly backups or had a second, sometimes third drive.”
“Exactly,” Zach said. “So how did you know files were deleted?” Zach had turned to John.
“I overheard someone talking about a file missing and didn’t think anything of it. Just thought someone made a mistake, but didn’t worry too much since I knew the backup system.”
“Kendra didn’t know that,” Nick said. “I never talked to her about specifics here. Not in terms of technology. She had limited access to things as it was.”
“Even as your fiancée?” Zach asked.
“Yeah. I never saw the reason to tell her those things. Just because she worked here didn’t change that.”
“I want to say that’s cold,” Zach said, grinning. “But in this case, I’m glad you didn’t tell her.”
“So back to the question, Dad. How did you figure it out?”
“After talking to IT, we were able to gather a list of all the files that were reported missing, then tried to pinpoint when it happened. I only knew about the patch file because Zach was whining about it so much.”
“Were you ticked at me?” Nick asked Zach, laughing.
“I thought you were slacking off and not doing your job. I was ready to read you the riot act until you told me where the file was. I just thought you hadn’t done the work.”
“Never worry about me doing my job,” Nick said.
“So Kendra tried to delete the file? That was the morning I terminated her. Do you think she suspected it?”
“Probably,” Zach said. “I told you everyone was taking bets on what was going on in her head. I’m sure she got wind of it or guessed what people thought.”
“I don’t know what she thought to do with the file. But she ended up trying to sell it to Eco Designs,” his father said.
“How did you find out?” Nick asked, looking at his father.
“Randy called me a few days ago. I know you and Randy never really got along and maybe that’s why Kendra went to him with the file. She’d been leaving him messages that she had something he might be interested in. He’d been out of town, so didn’t get back to her until he returned.”
“I’m surprised he would agree to talk to her,” Nick said. “She knew I didn’t care for Randy or how he ran his business. Plus he’s one of our biggest competitors.”
“Which is why she went to him,” Zach said. “No one ever said Kendra didn’t have initiative.”
Nick snorted. “Great way to show it. So Randy met with her and then called you, Dad?”
Somehow he never expected Randy to come forward.
“He said he’s got four ex-wives and knew that your engagement had ended. He was curious as to what she was up to. Said that though he wants to get ahead of you, he isn’t willing to stoop low enough to buy stolen products.”
“This is so surreal to me right now,” Zach said. “I never cared for her, but I really never expected her to betray you like this.”
“I don’t know what she could have been thinking. I gave her a very generous severance package. I tried to be as professional as I could.”
“Never underestimate a woman scorned,” his father said. “The police will be picking her up today. They’ll call me when she is in holding and you can take it from there.”
Anger
“You look as bad as I feel right now,” Nick said, rushing toward Mallory sitting on the couch. Her face was pale, her eyes were glossy, and she looked like she was ready to keel over. “Why didn’t you call me?”
She shook her head, then focused on him. “Huh?”
“I said why didn’t you call me if you needed me. What happened? You didn’t go see Paul, did you?”
“No, nothing like that. I said I wasn’t sure if I was. If I do, I want you with me.” She reached a hand out and pulled him next to her on the couch, then placed her head on his shoulder. “It’s been a long day, but nothing bad.”
“Then why do you look so awful?”
“Geez, thanks for that. Good to see you too,” she said dryly.
“I didn’t mean it that way. Tell me what happened.”
“I will after you tell me about your day. Honestly, it’s not bad, just surprising, and a bit emotional. But by looking at you, I’d say you did have a bad day.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” he said snorting, then wincing when he did.
“Tell me then.”
He wasn’t sure where to start. Or if he wanted to. No, that wasn’t true, he wanted to tell her, even if it made him feel like a fool.
“I just came from the police station.”
“What?” she said, sitting up straighter and looking him over. “Are you hurt? Was there an accident?”
“Nothing like that.” Though he might have welcomed an accident over what he just went through. “I had to go see Kendra.”
“Is she in jail?” she asked, looking amused, as if he was kidding, but not realizing it was the truth.
“Not anymore.”
“She was? Seriously? I was joking. And why did you have to bail her out? Doesn’t she have family?”
“I didn’t bail her out. It’s not like that. I decided to not press charges.”
Nick reached over and lifted her jaw back in place. “You’re serious?” she asked.
“Yep, I am.”
He started to laugh hysterically. He couldn’t help it. Three months ago, he couldn’t have written a comedy or tragedy or any type of movie for what he’d lived. Nor could he have imagined it. It just seemed impossible to him.
“Well, are you going to tell me? And why are you laughing?”
“I can’t seem to help it. I’m not going to bore you with all the details. Let’s just say that for as much of an emotionless robotic person I thought Kendra was, she went and did the one thing I never expected. She played the part of a scorned woman well.”
Nick started to tell her about his day. After his father had told him everything, the first phone call Nick made was to Randy.
Surprisingly, Randy actually helped him out. Seems Randy and Nick’s father decided to set Kendra up and she fell for it. Little did she know she was being recorded while trying to sell the stolen code from Nick’s company. Once all the evidence was presented to the authorities, it didn’t take long for the police to track Kendra down and arrest her.
“Nick,” Kendra had said when he walked into the police station and saw her in the interrogation room. She’d had a lawyer present with her, and Nick had brought his comp
any attorney, along with his father. “What are you doing in town?”
“I don’t think that really makes a difference right now. I think a better question is what the hell you thought you were doing stealing and trying to sell my property?”
“Don’t answer that,” her attorney stated.
“I might not press charges if you’re honest with me. But you can’t be honest with me if you don’t talk. And you better make me believe what you’ve got to say.”
He’d never been so livid in his life. She’d made a fool of him and his judgment of her. Of all the things he’d thought of Kendra, he never figured she’d steal from him. That she would betray him in this way.
“I’d advise you to hold off making statements like that, Nick.”
Nick turned to his attorney. “It’s my decision. I didn’t say I wasn’t going to, I said I might not.” He turned to Kendra. “Your choice. Jail or talk to me.”
“I want to talk one-on-one,” she said, her lower lip trembling.
He’d never seen her this unnerved before. She truly looked scared, but he couldn’t seem to drum up any sympathy over it. “I’m fine with it, if everyone can agree.”
“Nothing you say without me can be held against you,” Kendra’s attorney said.
“I just want to talk to Nick,” Kendra said, tears starting to form in her eyes. Tears he’d never seen before, not even when he called off their wedding.
He waited until everyone left and they were alone. “Talk to me. What the hell could you have been thinking?”
“I invested two years of my time with you. I had it all worked out and you just dropped me like a bad habit. You didn’t even look back,” she said, her eyes burning a hole in him.
There was the anger he’d never seen before. Anger that maybe he would have welcomed back then.
Then he realized it was for the best. He might have given her another chance if she’d ever shown any ounce of feeling toward him. Any type of emotion at all.
“I didn’t drop you like a bad habit. We talked about our problems for months before the wedding. Correction, I talked about it; you barely listened and told me I was wrong. You pushed the wedding, not me. You never wanted to hear what I had to say. I went along, and I’m guilty of that. But when I realized things were going faster than I felt comfortable with, I tried to talk to you to slow things down, but all you said was it was cold feet. I knew it wasn’t.”
