Taking Stock (35 page)

“From the beginning. All my research is gone. I could work through it again, but that would take days. I was hoping we could start from the other end. Figure out who’s on systems they shouldn’t be,” she said.

“If it’s Brad, he can get in any system any time he wants.”

“It could be anyone up there.”

Stan reminded her about the shredder incident, strange behavior even for Brad. He could easily sneak into her office and if he got caught, he could say he was checking on her work. She told Stan how often Brad was in the office late. He didn’t write code anymore and he didn’t directly manage projects, so what was he doing
?
They agreed managing thirty-seven people couldn’t keep him that busy. Brad wouldn’t be their only suspect, but he was top on the list.

Could a senior vice president be fool enough to steal from customers
?
Stan had never taken that threat seriously and right now it seemed to be his biggest failing. Sarah and
Eric
a believed it was happening. They couldn’t both be so committed and dead wrong. It was Stan’s laziness that made it possible. He could feel his face reddening; his subconscious knew it was true and his face grew red hot with embarrassment. He needed to make it right and he needed to do it fast.

“Any links to Brad other than his hysteria downstairs
?
” he asked.

“I don’t have a link to anyone. Anything that resembles proof keeps disappearing, but I have a pretty good idea how it’s being done. Someone is adding transactions to the database at night. Sometime between market close and market open, hundreds, maybe thousands, of records are getting added. I stumbled on it because when you look at the records unsorted, they line up in the order they were added to the database. There were bunches with times around
3:30
p.m
.
, but they were entered after transactions that were stamped with later times.”

“So you
know
someone’s messing with the data!”

“Looks that way.”

“You said the transactions were entered together
?
”

She agreed.

“Do you know when
?
Can you point to one specific time
?
”

“It happened on three or four days that I know of. I’d have to dig, but I could find the transactions again. I can’t say exactly when they were added, but I can give you the day and a ballpark time.”

“Good. I’ll get a security report from upstairs. It’ll show who was on the systems when those transactions were entered.”

“You ask for a security report and Brad will know in ten minutes.”

“What then
?
”

“This type of change has to be made from the computer room. If we knew who went in and out, we’d have a place to start. We won’t be able to convict anyone, but at least we’ll know who we’re after.”

Stan fished in his desk and waved his master key at
Eric
a. “Let’s go. Time’s a wasting.”

“We can’t go in there now. The whole group will see us. We need solid proof before we let anyone know what we’re doing.”

“Good point. I’ll meet you up there around six.”

“Better make it seven-thirty. Developers work late, especially Brad.”

Stan couldn’t believe he was agreeing to stay until seven-thirty, but he was spending time with
Eric
a Fletcher. This job was looking up.

The folded piece of paper lay hidden underneath
Eric
a’s keyboard as she waited for her teammates to head home. The hastily gathered list of dates would tie one of them to the suspicious transactions in the trading database. Friendly faces passed her door and she assured herself none of them could be the culprit. Down on twenty-one, Stan was anxious to get started. He’d called four times and it wasn’t even
seven o’clock
. He accepted her delays, but she worried he’d lose patience and appear outside her door with a dozen people still in the cubicles. Fortunately, Brad wouldn’t be one of them. She hadn’t seen him in an hour.

The calls were an unwelcome surprise. She’d counted on Stan’s apathy. All she wanted from him was to open the doors and get out of the way while she investigated. His laziness was corporate legend, but something was different tonight. It could be a hurry to get home, but his phone voice sparked with excitement. He knew the background and he’d drawn his conclusion quickly; the same conclusion
Eric
a was afraid to admit. Stan had been working on this before she’d arrived in his office. She hoped he’d been discreet. An accusation against Brad Foster would throw the office into turmoil. Stan was primed to go after Brad looking for kudos, but he might get something entirely different.
Eric
a wanted to see Brad punished, but she knew the kind of scrutiny her argument would receive. She’d chosen Stan for his patience and now she hoped she could rein him in long enough to gather her evidence.

Now that Stan knew, the consequences of the truth being out were unavoidable. Maybe she hadn’t believed it herself until she said it, but Stan’s excitement left little doubt. Brad’s world was headed for collapse. Getting caught stealing from the family firm would mean ostracism. The Finches might cover it up to avoid the scandal, they might not. Prosecution meant losing everything, his job, his freedom, his family. A man would do extraordinary things to escape that fate. Knowing she spent most of her waking hours within a dozen strides of his office gave
Eric
a a chill.

She sat alone pondering the days to come.

The noise in the hall dulled and the office began to close in on her. Brad had snuck in here twice to take her files. He knew she was getting close to catching him and he was desperate to stop her. She didn’t wait for Stan to call again. She got up and headed for the printer. At the door she turned back and printed an old memo in case anyone saw her. She explored rows of empty cubicles and dark offices. Brad’s was vacant as was the computer room. She doubled back to her desk and dialed Stan.

He was upstairs in less than two minutes. He slipped his key into the security room lock pausing only long enough for
Eric
a to catch the door before descending on the keyboard. He clicked confidently to the first date
Eric
a gave him and scanned the entries after
six o’clock
.
Eric
a could barely keep up. He narrowed the list to people who entered the computer room. He spun around to face her, a single name on the list behind him. Entering at
9:50
p.m.
was
Eric
a Fletcher, IT. The door opened again from the inside at
10:56
p.m.
, presumably her exit. He checked the other dates and found the same result. According to the system only
Eric
a entered the computer room on the nights in question.

The search was a bust. She had no proof and she risked losing her only ally. Stan gazed through her. She hoped he was bright enough to know a guilty woman wouldn’t lead him to the evidence. None of the dates stuck out in her mind. She spent so much time in the office, likely as not she’d been in the building on those nights. Whoever framed her had chosen his victim well. With a nearly blank social calendar, she’d be hard pressed to find an alibi. The security guards and cabbies knew her well, but they wouldn’t remember specific times she’d left. The only person she saw often at night was Brad and he wouldn’t volunteer to help.

“This doesn’t look good,” Stan said rousing her.

“You know–”

“It’s not me you need to convince,” Stan said raising his hands. “Any of these dates mean anything to you
?
”

“Not a thing.”

“Bummer.” Stan hunted around the room for something. He opened a wooden closet door. Inside was a small screen, a VCR and a stack of ten VHS tapes. The screen views rotated through three shots: the computer room, the lobby on twenty-three, and the hallway outside. In eight years
Eric
a had never noticed the cameras and no one ever mentioned them.

Stan pulled the tapes and scanned the labels. The tiny numbers aligned in neat columns of blue and black ink.
Eric
a recognized Brad’s handwriting when Stan displayed three tapes in a line for her.

The dates looked random at first.

After a minute the pattern was clear. The tapes were changed each day and the dates recorded. At the end of the week, the tapes were put aside and another set was used. The rotation showed a steady progression of dates from tape to tape, Monday to Friday. Stan held his finger on a day where the progression was interrupted. It was the first date on
Eric
a’s list, a Wednesday a few weeks ago. This tape hadn’t been used with its mates the previous cycles. Someone had swapped it in. How Stan deduced this in ten seconds, she wouldn’t know.

Eric
a watched Stan with newfound respect as he browsed for the next date on the list and found another break in the pattern. Someone was replacing tapes in the rotation on a fairly regular basis. They both knew why.

“You don’t have a VCR in your office, do you?”

“Of course not.”

“I know where we can find one.”

Stan put everything back, logged out of the security PC and led
Eric
a out into the hall.

“Where are we going
?
” she whispered.

“To find those tapes.”

It was darker now. For all his bravado, Stan didn’t turn on the lights. The security lighting was enough for them to follow the hall to Brad’s office. All Brad’s desk drawers were locked. Undeterred, Stan checked the wooden file cabinets arrayed around the room and found a half dozen VHS tapes neatly aligned at the bottom of one drawer. These tapes had been in and out of the rotation, too. Odd, but not proof.

Stan scooped up the tapes and headed out.

“Where now
?
’

“HR. They have a VCR for training. Let’s see what’s on these.”

Stan moved through the building like he owned it. His access could get him anywhere and he wasn’t shy about using it. Going to Stan was a better decision than she’d imagined.

 They wheeled the cart out of a cramped closet at the back of HR. Stan plugged in the TV and VCR and popped in a tape.

It played black and white checkerboard static.

It should have shown the last views from the security cameras. Stan tuned in the TV. Poor as the reception was, he recorded a bit of local news. It played back fine. The tapes had been erased, all six of them.

“Could we restore these
?
”

“Not a chance,”
Eric
a said.

“Too bad. Your boss is hiding something, but it’s going to be damn hard to prove. Will the server access records help
?
”