Fallen Down Under (Down Under #2) (11 page)

Jess

I finally land on home turf after what feels like an eternity. All I want is my own bed and that's exactly what I'll be doing as soon as I leave this airport. Heathrow is bursting at the seams as usual and it smells like home. I didn't bring any luggage so at least I don't need to faff about waiting for anything. As soon as I'm past customs I call for a taxi to pick me up. I would have called Jen or George but it's six in the morning and I can't be bothered running through the drama straight away. When they chew my ears off later, I need to have some strength in me.

Everything looks just the same when I walk through the door. It even smells the same and a feeling of happiness swims through my body. I don't think twice as I step into my bedroom and dive into my ready and waiting bed. It's been a long thirty hours and as soon as my head hits the fluffy pillows I feel myself drifting instantly as I allow the darkness to consume me.

My eyes are heavy and sore as I try to open them. I don't know how long I have slept for but it doesn't feel long enough. It takes me a few seconds to figure out where I am. As my eyes slowly adjust to the room around me I realise that I'm home. I stretch out in my own bed and it feels bloody good. Well it does until I remember why I've come home. Ugh I don't know where I'm going to start. Do I tackle Amelia first or should I at least call Tim to let him know that I'm back and we can create some kind of plan. I drag myself out of bed and my muscles ache so bad. I don't think I'm built for this jet lag shit and to make it worse I don't have Max to hold my hand this time. Oh fuck. At the thought of Max, I feel a pang of regret at just ditching him without a moment’s notice and not saying goodbye. He's going to flip his shit. Well it’s not like I have to face him for a while and it's highly unlikely that he'd fly halfway across the world to give me a stern telling off anyway.

As the hot water sprays down on me I try to devise a plan but I'm coming up blank. I'm praying we can just get one of the I.T guys to retrieve the file and have done with it but something tells me it's much bigger than this. Surely it couldn't have been an inside job. How else would the client have found out if they hadn't been given a tip off? As harsh as it sounds, I don't even think we have anyone with those kind of brains at Stanton's. If we did, then they’ve done a bloody good job of hiding it.

"Hey Tim, its Jess. How's things?"

"Oh Jess what are we going to do? The client is making some pretty hefty demands and I don't have a fucking clue what to do about it."

"Well I'm back now. How about you come over to mine and we can try and figure something out. Who knows maybe there could be a trail of some sort to lead us to the culprit?"

"Wait, you think someone has done this deliberately?" I don't know why he sounds so shocked.

"Tim we live in a very competitive workplace darling and sometimes competitors will take you by the balls no matter what the consequences."

"At times you scare me with that mind of yours Jess. I'll be over within the hour."

As I wait for Tim to arrive I spend my time going through the mail that has collated on my door mat. When I got in this morning I didn't even notice it but now there's easily thirty or so letters to get through. No doubt most of them will be junk but I've got to get through them eventually.

Well that's half an hour that I'll never get back. All my mail consisted of bills for Josh and takeaway menus and not forgetting the latest deals down at gala bingo over the next month. Maybe I should save that for George when I see him. He'd bloody love that. I can't wait to meet up with those two; I just need to get this situation under control first of all before I can enjoy some downtime with my besties.

When Tim turns up I actually fall in love with him all over again. As he walks through the door my eyes dart to the Starbucks bag in his hand.

"I take it you haven't had a chance to grab something to eat and I know you don't function without coffee."

"Tim, remind me why we're not married." I laugh as I remember how bare my cupboards are.

"Oh Jessica love, if only you had the right toolkit."

I lean in for a hug suddenly realising how much I have missed him. "I'm sorry you've had to deal with all this shit on your own Tim. I wish you would have called me sooner you know."

"You know me Jess. If there's one thing I hate it's admitting defeat. Especially when it's something major that I have been entrusted to look after." He passes me my cappuccino along with a ham salad and my stomach grumbles letting me know that it is in desperate need of some fuel.

"You know that no one, least of all Mal is going to blame you for this? Whatever it is we'll get to the bottom of it so I wouldn't worry too much. As long as we stick both of our heads in right, we'll get to the bottom of it. Mal doesn't know about any of this by the way."

We eat in silence for a while, or at least Tim allows me to eat before he fills me in on what's been happening since I've been away.

"So, she's just been turning up as and when she pleases?" I say in disbelief. It's completely out of character for Amelia to hang her career on the line like this.

"Not to begin with. Some day’s she'd be fine and others she would be an emotional wreck. I heard her arguing on the phone a few times to her boyfriend or whatever she wants to call him. To tell you the truth, if someone makes you cry like that, no way should they have the title of boyfriend attached to them. He sounds like a complete head fuck."

"Yeah, I think she was having a few problems with some guy before I left. The poor girl. I told her if she ever needed to talk to come and find me. So where is she now?"

"Who knows? You never know if she's going to make it in or not. Sometimes she comes in and then goes back home without a moment’s notice. I can't cope with it anymore Jess but I don't have the power to start any kind of disciplinary meetings and she knows she has me by the balls until Mal finds out anyway."

"Try and get hold of her for me. I think it's high time we had a little catch up. I just want to get to the bottom of why she's being so out of character."

Stanton's is dead. The whole vibe that I used to get a buzz off every day has vanished. "Jeez Tim, it feels like it's sucking your energy from your body. How the hell has it gotten this far? When was the last time the cleaners came out?"

"The last I heard, they turned up and Amelia sent them away because she had to head off in a hurry." Fucking hell. Old magazines are scattered around reception and it feels cold and dark.

"You, go stick that kettle on and fetch some bin bags and we'll make a start on trying to get this place back to normal." I try to call Amelia but yet again I have no luck. The longer this goes on the more pissed off I'm becoming.

As soon as I get into the swing of things, I feel my mood improving somewhat. "Have meetings been taking place here in this state?" I ask as the thought suddenly dawns on me.

"I've tried to make sure that all meetings have been offsite until I could arrange someone to come in and sort it out."

"Well it's done now at least." I'm still baffled how an office can get so disorganised in such a short space of time. "I think we need to buckle down and decide who actually wants to work for Mal and keep his baby soaring."

"I agree." Tim says as he plonks his arse down on a reception chair. "I meant to ask, but it thought I'd give you some headspace for a while."

"Ask away..." I say, fully aware of what's going to pop out of his mouth.

"How was Oz? Why were there no snaps on facebook?"

"Because my dear friend, I was too busy working to be talking selfies. But in all honestly it's amazing. It's completely out of this world. I mean who do you know that wakes up to a beautiful beach every morning?"

"Alright bitch, you don't need to rub it I'm that much. What's happening with tall dark and handsome?"

"Who Max? It's hard to tell right now. We're both still kind of figuring out where we want this to go. Well at least we were until I came back home without telling him."

"I bet he's one pissed off puppy. How many times has he been on the blower?" Tim's comments remind me that I actually haven't heard from him at all since I left. He must be really pissed at me to not even call. Normally if I've made him angry my phone is blowing up with calls and texts.

"I've not heard from him. I don't know if that's a good thing or not. Well I've got this to keep me occupied for now."

"The least you could do is drop him a quick message to let him know thatyou got here safe." Good point, maybe I should. I pick up my phone and type out a quick message to him. Hopefully Liss puts in a good word for me.

"Have you been onto the I.T guys?" I ask Tim, quite anxious to get the ball rolling. Josh would have been the perfect guy for the job but no matter how much I want to get this resolved, there's no way I'm going to be asking him for help.

"I logged it last night as an urgent case so hopefully they'll be in touch with an update soon.

"Let's hope so. What's happening with the accounts? I think I'll tackle those next." I'm fully centred in my to do mode and can't seem to stop. When I get hold of the person responsible for this, and yes I'm adamant there is someone behind this, god fucking help them. "Right well, if you need me I'll be in the office."

I leave Tim by reception and set of in the direction of my office. Thankfully this seems to be in one piece. It could do with a quick dust but I guess that can be done later. I fire up the computer and bring up the programmes that I need. Shit, should I even be using this if it's been hacked?

"Tim." I call out. He's at my door in seconds. "How many accounts has this happened to? Maybe I shouldn't go into the server in case something else gets taken?"

"As far as I'm aware, it's just one of the major ones and nothing else seems to have been affected."

"Do you think I should open it or wait 'til I.T. get back to us?"

"I'd definitely play it safe and wait until I.T. come back to us. If we have been hacked we could potentially be opening ourselves up to all sorts of shit."

I make a few calls to see if I can chase anything up but everything seems to be going in slow motion. How hard can it be for bloody professionals to get to the bottom of such a critical incident? Deciding that nothing else can be done today I head out to grab a much needed coffee and I'm overjoyed when I hear the voice of one of my faves.

"Princess." George comes barrelling towards me as I walk through the door at Joes. I'm picked up off my feet within seconds and whirled around so fast that I feel dizzy. "Why didn't you tell me you were home? When did you get back?"

"I've missed you too." I say as I wait for him to lower me back to the ground. "Early this morning. I haven't has a chance to tell anyone yet. Let's just say the shit has well and hit the fan."

"Am I gonna have to work these muscles on some bell end from Australia?"

"No, not that kind of drama. Purely work stuff."

"Well I’m about to take a break so I'll bring your usual over, go get yourself a seat."

I look around and see that my favourite seat is available, tucked away in a little alcove next to the windows. I used to love dropping in here just to watch the world pass by.

"Here you go princess." I take my cappuccino from him as he pushes a chocolate chip brownie my way too. "What’s a bit of gossip without chocolate?"

I laugh at my best friend. No matter what the situation he's always there to help me, plus with the mention of gossip it's hard to keep him away.

"It's good to be back, but I'm bloody shattered."

"How come you're not still living the life of Riley? I didn't expect you to be back for quite a while to be honest."

"You know me George, I can't go for long without good old drama creeping up and biting me on the arse sooner or later." I wait for a smart arse comment but nothing leaves his mouth. Instead he nods his head as if to say
"go on..."

"I received a call from Tim the other day and he was in a right state and I couldn't work out why he was calling at first. When he finally calmed down he told me that Stanton's had landed deep in the shit. One of the major client’s files has gone missing from the server along with all its super sensitive information on it. I haven't got a clue what I'm going to do about it and to make it worse, the client has somehow found out and are now threatening to out Mal and Stanton's."

"Shit. What took Tim so long to call you?"

"Oh I don't know. Maybe he thought he had everything under control or something. He's petrified of Mal finding out, that's why I ended up coming back as soon as I could.

"You know he's going to find out sooner or later princess." He states.

"I know. I'm just praying for a miracle before that happens." As if I don't already know that I'm fighting a losing battle. Jeez George is supposed to be on my side.

"So come on then. Don't keep me waiting in suspense."

"Hmm." I ask completely oblivious to what he's asking me. My minds all over the place and I can't stop my mind from wandering off and over thinking things.