A Dime a Dozen (17 page)

The seclusion of this house reminded me of my place on the Chesapeake. Nestled deep in the trees along the banks of the river, my Maryland home was my sanctuary, my favorite place to be alone, to commune with nature and with God. Of course, recognizing that I had allowed myself to become a little
too
secluded, in the last few months I had made an effort to get more involved at my church and to make more friends in the community. But the truth remained that nothing made me happier after a busy church social or a friendly lunch in town than to come back to the peace and quiet of my isolated little dwelling.

This cabin had always offered the same sort of attraction, though not for me alone, but for me and Bryan together. We had bought it on a whim from an older couple the Webbers knew who were retiring and moving to Florida. They hadn’t wanted much for the place despite the incredible view, and Bryan’s practical architect’s nature knew a good deal when he saw one. Truthfully, Bryan had been more gung ho about buying the house than I had been, because it was far up from the lake and I really preferred to be closer to the water. Once we owned it, however, I quickly changed my mind. It was easy enough to drive down and have lake access from his parents’ house, and there was a lot to be said for getting off alone up here where no one bothered us and we were free to enjoy each other in the privacy of our mountaintop retreat.

Thinking of those early times here together made me realize how much had happened to me since Bryan passed away. Sometimes, when I looked back, it seemed as though I’d led a different life then, as if I’d been a different person. And, in a way, I had been. I was much more innocent then, more trusting of what the future held in store. Not anymore. Now I knew that nothing was ever guaranteed, except maybe “till death do us part.”

I cleared away my dishes and brought them inside, thinking that despite the pain I had gone through, how blessed I was that God had chosen to send someone else into my life now, someone also good and kind and smart and funny and handsome. When I compared Bryan with Tom, I could see they were such very different people, and yet there was something about them that was the same. A goodness. A decency. A way of treating me gently and respectfully. In high school, most of the girls I knew saw “love” in their boyfriends’ possessiveness or in the dramatics of their breakups and reunions.

I had never been like that. To me, if you loved someone, there was no need for jealousy or drama, just simple decency. Arguments? They were necessary and unavoidable, of course, but they were meant for solving problems, not creating new ones. Bryan was the first boy I had ever met who seemed to think like me, who valued our getting along with each other and our having fun together above emotion and histrionics.

Tom, of course, might be a different sort once we spent more time together, but thus far he and I had never had anything beyond petty disagreements, so I really didn’t know. Certainly, he possessed a passion, bubbling under the surface, that spoke volumes. As I thought about that passion, about the intensity of his gaze and the firmness of his hands on my back as he held me to him, I felt a delicious shiver run through me, like a stirring of something that had long been asleep. Knowing it was too soon to go there, too soon to think beyond the confines of our current relationship, I forced my mind onto the tasks at hand. I quickly dressed for the day, styled my hair, and put on my makeup. There was so much that needed to be accomplished, and I was glad to be getting an early start. As I walked to my car, I could hear someone whistling a tune to themselves nearby, and it reminded me that I wasn’t alone up here—and that there were probably a lot more houses now than there were when Bryan and I first bought the place. As I backed out of my driveway and onto the road, I spied the whistler in my rearview mirror: Walking down the road was an older man, tall and lanky with white hair and a gnarled old walking stick. I thought how lucky he was to have these gorgeous mountains for hiking.

I drove down the mountain the shorter way, on the road that would come out by the lake. As the view appeared and disappeared among the trees, I reviewed the events of the previous day, rolling around in my mind the problem of the erased database at MORE. Perhaps I was grasping at straws, but I kept wondering if the database administrator, Ellen Mack, was being completely truthful about not having written down the passwords to the system. If I hadn’t seen this happen so many times in the past, I might not be so suspicious, but in my experience, serious breaches of security could often be traced back to one careless worker who scribbled down passwords and taped them to the inside of their drawer or something. With someone savvy like Ellen, the placement might be a little less obvious, but I still had a hunch they were hidden in her office somewhere. She may have been having her gallbladder taken out the night the hard drive was erased, but that didn’t mean she hadn’t played a part in this drama simply through carelessness.

To that end, I had been hatching a plan all morning that would let me see whether that was the case here or not. When I reached a straight part of the road, I dug out my phone and dialed Ken Webber. It was early, but I knew someone would be awake since it was a school day and the boys were probably getting ready to go to the bus.

Fortunately, Ken answered the phone sounding chipper, as usual.

“Hey, it’s Callie,” I said. “You got a second?”

“Sure. What’s up?”

“I have a question for you. If Dean wanted you to change the very tightest-level password on the MORE system, what would you need in order to do that?”

“Just the passwords that are in place now. Those would let me in, then I could change whatever you want.”

“Could you do it remotely?”

“Sure. I’m set up for running diagnostics for them that way.”

That was good news. I asked him if he would be available to change the password in about an hour, and then I told him that I would call back. I also asked him not to say anything about this to anyone in the meantime.

Once I reached the bottom of the mountain, I dialed the Webbers and was glad to find them still at home. Yes, Dean said, they had a camcorder I could borrow, and yes, if I needed the keys to get into MORE early, that was fine with them, just come on by.

“What time does Ellen go to the office in the morning?” I asked.

Dean wasn’t sure, but he thought she went in around 8:30 or 9:00, the same as everyone else. It was 7:45 right now, so I would have to hurry.

After stopping by the Webbers’ house to get the keys and the camera, I let myself into the MORE building at exactly 7:57 a.m. Though the office wasn’t supposed to open until 8:30, there was always a chance of some early bird popping in and catching me.

I set about my task as quickly as I could, first by going straight to the conference room, putting my stuff down, and getting the camcorder out of its case. I played with it for a moment, figuring out the controls, and then I gripped it and headed down the hallway to Ellen’s office. So far, so good, as I was still the only person in the building.

First, I did a cursory search of all of the logical hiding places in her office—drawers, cabinets, even various files in her computer. As expected, I came up with nothing, so finally I turned my attentions to the camcorder.

Placement was going to be an issue since the camera was so bulky, and I found myself wishing for one of the tiny pin cameras I kept in my investigation kit at home. Still, this didn’t need to be concealed for long. I peeked and poked around her office and finally found a spot sort of behind and beside the trash can, under a counter opposite her computer. I tucked the camera in there, turned it on and let it film for a minute, and then rewound and watched what I had done. The view cut off too low, but after fiddling a bit more I finally got the camera tilted correctly to film the entire desk area.

Unfortunately, pressing the Record button also caused a bright red light to come on at the front of the camera. In desperation, I taped a small piece of paper over the little light so that it couldn’t be seen.

I left the camera in place but turned it off for now. Standing in the doorway, I tried to see things as she would see them, and I was convinced that she would never notice the hidden camcorder unless she bent directly down to look under the counter.

I heard some noises from the front of the building, so I ducked out of Ellen’s office and made my way back to the conference room. Now it was just a matter of waiting for her to come in for the day and of getting Dean and Natalie to go along with what I needed for them to do.

In the meantime, I got my papers organized on the conference table. For a moment I looked longingly at all of the information Dean and Natalie had so diligently handed over to me the morning before. What if we couldn’t find the company mole? Would I really have to look my in-laws in the eye and tell them their grant request had been denied?

My thoughts were interrupted by their appearance. They looked grim, as if they had been thinking the same thing I had. I gave them both a hug and told them not to lose hope. I still had a few tricks up my sleeve.

Ellen Mack showed up for work just as I finished explaining the plan to the Webbers. We gave her a moment to get settled, and then, as I had instructed, Natalie walked with me down to Ellen’s office.

“Good morning!” the woman sang out when she saw us in the doorway.

“Good morning,” Natalie replied, her smile fake and her shoulders stiff. I could tell she wasn’t used to deception and that it made her very uncomfortable. Nevertheless, she told Ellen that I was verifying security measures this morning and that we needed the current passwords that would get us all the way into the system.

“Certainly,” the woman replied, jotting them down on a piece of paper from memory.

“And prior to this, you’ve never written down the passwords or told them to anyone?” I asked as she handed the paper to Natalie.

“Never,” she said confidently. “That would be careless.”

Natalie thanked her for her help, and as she moved to block Ellen’s view and pointed to something on the computer screen, asking a question, I quickly reached down and hit the Record button on the camera, hoping Ellen wouldn’t notice the slight humming sound it made as it kicked to life.

Once that was done, Natalie and I left Ellen and went into Natalie’s office, where I called Ken on my cell phone. I gave him the current passwords and asked him to change the one at the tightest security level. I held on as he did so, and once he had confirmed for us that it had been changed, I asked him to hold on.

I had Natalie call Ellen on the office phone.

“Ellen, it’s Natalie,” she said stiffly. “I’m sorry, but I can’t get this last password to go through. Would you please double-check it?”

She was quiet for a moment and then said, “Okay, thanks.”

I smiled encouragingly as she hung up the phone.

“She’s going to try it herself and call back,” she said.

About two minutes passed as Ken waited on the other end of the line, and in that time I could only hope that Ellen wouldn’t do anything that would cause her to discover the camera. When the phone finally rang, it made us both jump.

“Yes?” Natalie asked, and then she listened, nodding. “Yes, all right then. Okay. Goodbye.”

She hung up the phone and nodded at me.

“That was Ellen,” she said. “She can’t get the password to go through either.”

“All right, Ken,” I said into the phone. “Change it back to what it was.”

He did that as we waited, and when he was finished I thanked him for his help and hung up.

“Call her back,” I said to Natalie, “and ask her to come down here and try it on your computer. It should work now.”

She did that, and then I walked out of the office, passing a flustered Ellen Mack in the hallway, headed in the opposite direction.

I went directly to Ellen’s office, reached under the counter for the camera, and pulled it out. Hiding it as best I could in my jacket, I walked straight to the bathroom and shut and locked the door.

“Please, please, please,” I whispered as I rewound the tape. Once it stopped, I pressed Play and then Fast Forward.

It didn’t take long to see that my plan may have worked. At first, the camera was blocked by my legs, then the film showed Natalie and me walking out and Ellen sitting at her computer screen. The camera filmed her back for a while, then I zipped ahead to where she answered the phone, hung up, and typed into the computer.

I watched as she obviously grew frustrated with the system that wouldn’t let her in. Then, in the exact shot I hoped to capture, Ellen reached into her purse, took out her smartphone, and typed something into it. A moment later, she went back to her computer keyboard and typed something into there as well.

Bingo.

True to her word, Ellen Mack didn’t have a hidden place where she kept the passwords scribbled down for easy reference. That had been my suspicion and the reason for my filming.

No, Ellen Mack was more high tech than that, and she had been telling the truth. She didn’t write the passwords down.

That would be careless.

Instead, she simply entered them into her phone.

Fifteen