by Ravenna Tate
Someone wants you to think she’s done this again.
That was a possibility, but who? Traci? She didn’t have the skills to do this. That could only have been accomplished if someone had hacked into his computer program and manipulated the alerts. And who could have done that? Certainly not Traci.
He recalled Traci’s snarky attitude near the cultural center the other evening. But it had been Harper who had shown Traci how to hack into his sites the first time. He knew that because Harper had told him so.
But Harper wouldn’t have manipulated the alert to show she’d been in his accounts again. Someone else would have had to do that. But why? And who could hack into his personal computer? That required bypassing his home network, and he’d made that very difficult to do.
Unless the person had hacker skills. But why would Harper do this? Why would she look at his accounts again? She’d be caught, and she knew that. Why would she take a chance like that? Did she have doubts? Did she think he was still seeing other women? Did she have ulterior motives that he’d missed entirely?
She wasn’t sure about moving in here, and she freaked out when you mentioned marriage and children.
But that wasn’t a reason to do this again. She loved him. She’d said so. She simply needed time, that’s all. He understood that. Look how long it had taken him to reach this point.
What if she had done this because she was afraid to tell him she really didn’t want to be with him, and this was one surefire way to shift the burden of ending this relationship into his hands?
No. It couldn’t be. She wasn’t like that.
His fingers trembled as he accessed each of his personal accounts. Every single one of them had been hacked into by Harper, according to the alerts. Why would she take a chance like this? She knew he had this program on his personal computer.
He ran another program that told him who had accessed all programs recently, and let out a string of swear words a mile long when it finished. Someone from inside the system his hacker team used had been in this machine. That meant it had to be Harper, or someone who worked on that team.
Or someone who used to work on that team. Like Rob.
He ran a virus scan, but it was clear. Then he returned to the alert program and updated the password, but it hardly mattered now. If someone had the skills to get in once, they’d get in again. Unless he was wrong and no one had manipulated it, and it had been Harper.
The only way to know was to compare IP addresses, and then trace it down to an individual machine. Unless the person who had done this was able to mask that. And anyone on that team would know how to do that, including Harper.
But she would know she’d be caught accessing the sites, at the very least. If she had wanted to access them again and not get caught, she would have bypassed the alert program. This had to be someone trying to make it look like she’d done this. But who?
His migraine had now reached epic proportions. He wouldn’t accomplish anything by continuing to stare at a computer screen, so he shut it off and took some medication. Harper was fast asleep, but he didn’t crawl into his bed next to her. Instead he went into a spare bedroom down the hall and tried to sleep.
Images flashed through his mind from the past month. Could he have been that wrong about her? How was that possible? He’d never felt this way. If she’d broken his trust, he didn’t know what he’d do. And there was no concrete way to pin this down without an exhaustive search of the code in his own machine.
He could do it himself, but he’d rather put this mess into someone else’s hands. Someone who was an unbiased third party. Because he needed the truth, no matter what it was. He could use his own IT team, but he felt it was important that someone with no stake in his company do this.
Ace rolled over and glanced at the clock. The second shift IT crew at Greco Communications would still be at work now. Land lines still connected phones within a city and to surrounding cities, but they didn’t cross large bodies of water. Greco Communications was in CentralWest over fifteen hundred miles away, but happened to be on the same trunk line as NorthCentral, so he was able to use his land line to call the IT desk and asked for Merrick Anderson.
He didn’t want any email communication to tip someone off to this, and he didn’t want to use his Internet phone. That could be traced easier than a call from his land line. Until he found out where this breach had originated, he wanted to keep this to himself. Merrick had been working for Dominic Greco for nearly twenty years, and both men would trust Merrick with their lives.
“Merrick, this is Ace. I need a huge favor, and this has to stay between you and me.”
****
Harper sensed something was very wrong Sunday morning when she woke up and it was obvious Ace had never slept in his bed. She showered quickly then dressed, but he still wasn’t around. Had he worked all night? She didn’t even smell coffee, and wondered if he was awake yet.
She finally found him on the patio, eating breakfast and sipping coffee. She hadn’t smelled it because the pot was plugged in out here. He had his laptop in front of him, and was on a land line as well. She knew they still existed and that he had one in the apartment, but hadn’t seen him use it yet. Who was he talking to that he couldn’t simply chat with on the computer or use his Internet phone?
As she was about to make her presence known, she heard him say something to the other person that made her blood run cold.
“And you’re absolutely certain no one could have faked this? It had to be Harper?”
She stood completely still, but her heart pounded so hard she was certain he’d hear it. What the hell was going on?
“What about masking? How deep did you look?”
Masking? Masking what? IP addresses? Machine IDs? What? What the hell had happened?
“Well that still leaves a slight possibility it wasn’t her.”
She didn’t dare even take a breath.
“Okay. Give it to me in percentages.”
Ace sighed out loud in a way that told her he hadn’t heard what he wanted to. “All right. If that’s the best we can do, I’ll have to take it. Thanks, Merrick. I owe you one big time.”
Who was Merrick?
He disconnected the call, and she cleared her throat. The way he whirled around in his chair told her he hadn’t realized she was standing in the doorway. “How long have you been listening?”
Why was he so angry? The look in his eyes was as cold as that day he’d threatened to fire her for hacking into his sites. “Long enough to hear you call that person Merrick and say something about masking. What’s going on?”
He gave her a hard stare, then brought up a program on his computer. “Come have a look.”
She didn’t want to, but forced her feet to move toward him. At first, she didn’t understand what he showed her. Was this from over a month ago? No. She glanced over the dates. They were all from the past few days. “Ace, what is this?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.” His voice was hard and cold.
“I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I, Harper.”
She tried to touch his face but he flinched, and she had to blink back tears. “I did not hack into your sites again.”
“This would suggest otherwise.”
“Then it’s wrong.”
How could he think she’d do that again? What the hell had happened while she’d slept?
“You know what? I thought so, too. Last night while I was fighting a migraine I did a few checks myself, then finally realized what I needed was far more exhaustive and extensive than what I could accomplish with an open mind.”
She took a seat at the table and eyed the food and coffee for a few seconds. “You can’t believe I did this.”
“I didn’t want to. I really didn’t. I told myself that you had to have known you’d be caught. So then I thought someone had tried to set you up.”
She nodded and started to speak, but he cut her off.
“
And then I realized that if someone had done that, they’d need the same kinds of skills my hacker team has. So I called a good friend on the IT team of one of the Weathermen, and he was up all night running checks and scanning code for me to try to determine where this originated.”
“And?”
“And it came from your work machine.”
Chapter Sixteen
Harper was numb inside. He didn’t believe her. That was the bottom line. He’d said he loved her, and had mentioned marriage and children more than once. And then just like that it was over. She hadn’t done what he’d accused her of doing, but he didn’t believe that. How the hell could this have happened?
“I did not do this, Ace. How can you think I would after everything we’ve done in the past month? After everything we’ve said to each other?”
“What am I supposed to do in the face of this, Harper? Merrick is one of the best IT people I know.”
“What percentage did he give you that it wasn’t me?”
He averted his gaze. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Dammit, Ace, yes it does. What number did he toss out there?”
He gave her a long, cool stare. “Ten percent possibility he is wrong.”
“That’s statistically significant. You know that. And yet you still don’t believe that someone could have set me up?”
“Who? Who would do that and why? Who has those kinds of skills?”
“Rob, for starters. You just fired him.” She saw it on his face. Rob had crossed his mind, too. “Did Merrick check Rob’s work machine?”
“He checked them all.”
“Then he manipulated it because I did not do this!”
He stood, towering over her. “I will check it out personally, but in the meantime, I need you to start looking for a new place to live.”
Her heart nearly burst. “Excuse me?”
“I said I want you out of here, Harper. I’ll give you some time since you just gave up your apartment.”
She was too stunned to speak.
“And you’re off the project at work. In fact, take a few days off. I’ll let you know what I intend to do.”
“You’re firing me?”
“Not yet.”
He started to walk back into the apartment, but she grabbed his arm. When he shook her off, she couldn’t hold back the tears. “You said you loved me. Was that a lie?”
“You said a lot of things, too, including that you loved me as well. I might ask you the same question. Was it all a lie? A game? See how far you can rope in the millionaire?”
If he’d slapped her face it would have hurt less than his words. “How can you say that? I never once gave you any indication I was after your damn money!”
“No, not overtly. But you’ve been enjoying the food, the clothes, and the cultural events.”
“It was never about that. I told you so. Did you think I lied about that, too?”
He looked so conflicted she had a shred of hope, but then his gaze turned determined again. “I don’t know what to think right now. But I do know that facts don’t lie. It’s best if we don’t speak about this for the rest of the day. I still have a headache, and I need time to process everything.”
He left her on the patio, alone with the half-eaten food and old coffee. She sat there for a long time, staring out over the fake outdoors, wondering what her life might have been like if her parents had lived.
Would she have earned an MBA and gone to work for Ace, or would she have pursued another course of study? Would her parents still be above ground, working for the Storm Troopers, or would they have put their skills to use below ground, working behind the scenes?
If she’d never met Ace, the past few weeks wouldn’t have been so erotic and incredible. But maybe that would have been best? If she’d never known this kind of passion and love, she wouldn’t now know what she’d just lost.
And what did it matter to imagine what might have been? The bottom line was still the same. She loved him, but he didn’t believe her. He no longer trusted her. He wanted her out of his life and out of his organization. And she’d done absolutely nothing wrong this time.
****
Ace had to get out of his apartment. He took his personal laptop and went to the office, then dug around on his own, looking for the truth. He trusted Merrick. The man knew what he was doing, and he had no stake in this so there was no reason for him to lie.
But he trusted Harper, too. Or, he had. You still do. That was the absolute truth, right there. He’d looked into her eyes and heard the sound of her voice. He’d watched her body language. She hadn’t done this. Why would she lie to him? She had nothing to gain, and she knew that. She also knew he was too smart to fool.
But so was she. She was very smart. And she knew her way around code. That’s why he’d hired her in the first place, and it’s why he’d put her on his hacker team. But did she know it well enough to make it look like someone was trying to frame her? Yes.
And why had she accessed his sites again, if she had indeed done it? What had she been looking for? He hadn’t asked her that, but maybe he should have. Or, better yet, maybe he should have asked himself that dumbass question first, before he’d gone off half cocked, in the midst of a migraine, and instituted a quest to prove she’d been lying to him for weeks.
Fuck it all! He slammed his fists on his desk, and then rose and paced his office. This was the old Ace. The man who would tell a woman it was over if she so much as smiled at a baby or asked him color he would paint his bedroom if he was to redecorate it. The cold, callous, shallow Ace would do this to Harper, not the new Ace. The one she loved. The one she had helped him find, hiding in the dark, dank corners of his past.
And now he’d blown it with her. He’d told her to move out and had pretty much let her know he intended to terminate her employment. All without giving her the benefit of the doubt.
She was right about Rob. He had the skills to do this, and he had the motive. Just because Rob had told Harper he hardly ever spoke to Traci didn’t mean it was true. And then there was the matter of him having been way too interested in whether or not he and Harper were together.
He almost texted her, but instead he thought it was better to have all his ducks in a row before he went to her and begged her forgiveness.
Ace sat down at his desk again and sent a message to every person on his current hacker team, except Harper, and asked them all to tell him in vivid detail exactly what they’d heard Rob say to her and when. His email came one step short of threatening to fire them if they weren’t completely forthcoming. They had no reason to protect Rob now. Ace needed to know what had been said up and down that row.
****
Harper glanced around her suite, amazed at how in twenty-four hours it had gone from looking like a palace to a prison cell. She needed help, but from whom? The only people she knew who could help her dig behind the scenes in something like this were the ones she worked with, and Ace.
She picked up the clothes she’d worn over the weekend with the intention of taking them to the laundry room, and looked through the pockets, as she always did. When she pulled Emmett’s business card out of the pocket of the jeans she’d worn the night she’d met him and Kane, she stared at it for a long time. Emmett could help her, but it would mean hacking into Ace’s company systems. No. She couldn’t ask him to do that. But maybe there was another way? It was worth a shot. She had no one else to turn to.
She decided to email him from her personal laptop, knowing full well that Ace might see it if he decided to snoop around, but not caring at this point. Maybe if he did, he’d realize how serious she was to prove to him that she had not done this?
Emmett called her using video chat, and she explained the problem to him, and told him everything about what she’d done, about Traci, and about Rob. But she could tell by the look on his face halfway through her story that there was no way he’d betray a friend like this. Why had she even bothered? She was digging a deep
er hole here by trying to prove her innocence.
“What are my options?” she asked, not even bothering to wait for Emmett to tell her he couldn’t do what she asked of him. “I don’t know what to do. Ace said he’s going to dig around more on his own, but I feel helpless. There has to be something I can do to prove to him I didn’t do this.”
“I’m sure once Ace realizes that Rob is the more likely suspect, he’ll focus his attentions on that avenue. He has an IT department, too. Why did he bother Merrick with this? Did he tell you?”
“No. I was hoping you might know.”
Emmett looked hesitant, and she was about to retract the question when he finally spoke again. “I can think of one reason. I don’t know how much Ace has told you about the women he’s dated, but it wasn’t unusual for them to try to snoop around in his personal files at home or work. It’s part of why he has his systems locked down tightly, and why he’s such a stickler for privacy.”
“I can understand all that. He has a lot at stake.”
“Yes, he does. But he knows as well as any of us that every system has flaws, and there are ways around them if you know where to look. Give him some time, okay? I know you’re in shock right now, but let him think this through. He’s probably at the office right now, having his IT department check this out on their end. If it originated from a work station, they’ll find it.”
A nasty shiver ran down her spine “How did you know he was at the office?”
Emmett laughed, but she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t forced. “Lucky guess. He’s always working.”
“All right. Thank you, Emmett.” She just wanted to end this chat. It had been a mistake to contact him, and now Ace might think she was trying to undermine him with his friends.
“You’re welcome. I’m glad I could help.” He winked at her. “And if he kicks you out for real, you can always come here to stay.”
She smiled and thanked him again, hoping like hell that Ace never saw the feed from this conversation.
