Escape: A Stepbrother Romance (30 page)

I went downstairs for breakfast to find Sheri and Roy arguing. Sheri was blaming Roy for the leak, insisting that it must have come from his firm, and Roy was yelling at her for stealing other people’s work in the first place.

“If you’d just developed your own recipes none of this would have happened,” Roy yelled.

“Do you have any idea how difficult that is?” Sheri screamed back.

“It’s just fucking cooking,” Roy moaned. He didn’t swear often but this situation had him on edge.

I looked over at Vicky who was noticeably offended at her dad’s comments about cooking, but she didn’t say anything. We’d had a few minor arguments over the last couple of days. She still insisted on going to university and studying for a degree that she wasn’t even interested in. She claimed it was the best thing for the short term and that in the long term she would figure out a different career, but I worried she would fall into the same trap as her mom.

One day, I asked her what her mother would’ve wanted, but she went off the rails at me. I made a mental note: don’t try to use her mother to win an argument. Vicky had changed since we’d started sleeping together and again when she found out about her mom, but the changes had come too late. Her place at university was already set, and she didn’t want to change things.

“Are you going into the office today, Dad?” Vicky asked.

“No,” he replied. “There are too many distractions there. Those cyber security guys keep digging into all the computers including mine. I can’t get any work done.”

“Are they any closer to finding out who did it?” Vicky asked.

“I think so. I heard talk last time I was in the office that sounded like they had a lead, but that was a few days ago and there haven’t been any developments since.”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” Vicky said. I stared at her as she ate a slice of toast. She didn’t look disappointed; she looked relieved.

We’d spoken briefly about what happened to Sheri and Vicky admitted to being pleased that she was getting her just desserts, but she always changed the subject quickly. I said once that I hoped the person responsible would be caught so her father would go back to spending more time at the office, but she jumped down my throat and said she was pleased at what happened and hoped the guilty party got away with it. I didn’t care enough to argue so I just shrugged my shoulders and changed the subject.

Roy’s phone rang and he answered it, despite an evil stare from Sheri who hated it when people used phones at the table. She saw it as being disrespectful to the meal she had made and, while I agreed in principle, I didn’t think she was really the one to be talking about disrespect towards food given that she had stolen most of the recipes she made.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Roy said to the person on the phone. “That’s impossible. Remind those analysts who hired them in the first place. If they think they’re getting paid for coming up with such utter nonsense then they have another thing coming.” Roy’s face turned red in the space of ten seconds as he listened to what sounded like a male voice on the other end of the phone. “You don’t have the authority to do that. I’m the managing partner. That’s my decision.”

Roy listened for another twenty seconds or so and then hung up after threatening the caller with his job.

“Is everything okay, Dad?” Vicky asked. Her dad spent too much time ignoring her to notice the nervousness in her voice and the way her leg was twitching under the table. She was worried about something, and I had an awful idea I knew what it was.

“You’re not going to believe this, but the law firm has made a report to the police about the theft of those leaked emails.”

“Good,” Sheri muttered. “I’m glad the police are getting involved. Hopefully this little shit will learn his lesson.”

“Why the police?” I asked. “This sounds like a civil matter.”

“It’s a theft,” Roy explained. “It’s one thing for an associate at the firm to leak the information, but they’re saying someone who wasn’t supposed to have the information in the first place leaked it. That makes it a theft and the firm is within its rights to press charges.”

“This is good news,” Sheri said. “I suppose I would’ve preferred to settle this quietly, but the thief blew that option when he leaked the information. As far as I’m concerned he can rot in prison.”

I glanced over at Vicky again. She’d stopped eating and had turned a ghostly white. I saw a drop of sweat drip down the back of her neck.
Oh Vicky, what have you done?

“What happened?” I asked. “Did someone hack into the firm’s servers?”

“No,” Roy said. “They’re saying someone got hold of a hard copy of the emails and then leaked them to the press.” He didn’t look at Vicky. If he had, he would’ve noticed she looked like she wanted to throw up. “One of the websites didn’t properly redact the email account that sent the evidence.”

“Surely the culprit didn’t use their professional or home email account?” I asked.
Please God Vicky, tell me you aren’t that stupid.

“No, but they figured out where the email was sent from.”

“Where?” Sheri asked.

“Here,” Roy said. “The email was sent from this house. It wasn’t me and it damn sure wasn’t Sheri. So,” he said, looking up at me and then finally looking over at Vicky. “Which one of you two was it? Which one of you do I blame for messing up our lives and your own?”

---

Roy knew. He knew the culprit was Vicky. If he’d thought for a second that it was me he would have been screaming in my face right now. The man was still slightly scared of me, but he wouldn’t have held back at something so important. The fear in his voice and the way he wouldn’t look at his daughter for more than half a second at a time made it clear that he knew and just didn’t want to accept it.

Roy’s mind must have been working overtime right now. He probably pictured his perfect daughter with a criminal record and the consequences that entailed. She wouldn’t be allowed into college, and would struggle to get a job stacking shelves, let alone as a lawyer. I hated the man, but one thing I couldn’t deny was that he wanted his daughter to have a good career. Now he could see that all slipping away.

I saw Vicky try to speak. She kept opening her mouth but the words wouldn’t form. She’d never so much as been given detention in her entire life and now she was facing criminal prosecution.

“Vicky,” I said calmly. “Go upstairs to your room please.” I knew I must sound like her father, but she had to get out of the kitchen before she fainted.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Roy yelled as Vicky tried to stand up.

“You don’t get to order her around anymore,” I yelled back at Roy. I sounded like a hypocrite, giving orders to Vicky while scolding Roy for the same thing.

“Who the hell do you think you are to talk to me like that? She’s my daughter.”

“And she’s my girlfriend,” I said. I’d never described anyone as my girlfriend before, but if the word felt weird on my lips, it was nothing compared to the expression on Sheri’s and Roy’s faces. My God, if I knew they would’ve looked so funny I would’ve told them weeks ago. They were speechless. “Vicky, I’m not telling you, I’m asking you. Please go upstairs.”

Vicky nodded and stood up leaving our parents open mouthed of the table. I was waiting for Vicky to make it upstairs, but she froze half way up and pointed to the door. She could see something through the window. Seconds later there was a loud knock on the door.

Go
, I mouthed to Vicky, but she stayed motionless on the stairs. Roy walked over to the door and opened it to reveal two police officers in uniform and one in the suit and tie that signaled a detective.

“Mr. Marshall?” one of the officers asked. Roy nodded his head. “We’ve received a report from the legal firm of Williams Conwich & Hall regarding a theft that was traced back to this house. We need to talk to you and your family about this incident. May we come in?”

Roy nodded and showed them into the living room. He offered them a drink, but they all refused.

“As I understand it,” the officer continued, “you are the managing partner at Williams Conwich & Hall. Is that correct?” Roy nodded his head. “Then you are no doubt aware that there was a serious theft from your firm involving a Ms. Sheri Ramsden.”

“Her name’s Sherri Marshall now, but yes, I’m aware of the theft.”

Roy made a damn good lawyer, I had to give him that. You would have no idea from his cool and calm demeanor that his daughter faced criminal prosecution. He was probably hoping there was still a way out of this, but I knew that was unlikely. Vicky had left a trail and where there was a trail there was usually a conviction.

If the worst happened and the case ended up in front of a jury then Vicky was screwed. Juries didn’t understand evidence involving cybersecurity and IP addresses, so they always agreed with whatever the expert witnesses said.

“We have it on good authority that information was sent from the IP address of this residence. We would like to search all your computers to review the hard drives.”

“You’re going to need a warrant,” Roy said. “I will fully cooperate, but I’m going to need to see a warrant before I let you go through my hard drive. I have sensitive client information on there. Some of that information has already been leaked to the press, so you can understand how concerned I am about security right now.”

“Of course,” the officer said. “We can come back with a warrant, but I am going to ask if you or any of your family would like to come forward to talk about this.”

“We will cooperate,” Roy said again. “But I’m going to need to see that warrant.”

I looked over at Vicky who was now sat on the stairs watching the conversation unfold intently. I silently urged her to go upstairs, but I didn’t think she could even see me.

“Don’t bother with the warrant,” I said, walking up to the police officers. “I did it. I found hard copies of the emails and leaked them to the press. She deserves it,” I added, looking spitefully at my mom for added dramatic effect.

Vicky burst into tears immediately. She tried to confess and pleaded with the officers for me to be let go, but her words were too muffled by tears for anyone to understand them.

The officer placed me under arrest, but didn’t bother with the handcuffs. I walked willingly to the police car and stepped in the back. All I could hear was the sound of Vicky’s tears as I left the house not knowing if I would ever see her again.

Caiden went to prison and it was all my fault. After watching Caiden get dragged off in a police car through tear filled eyes, I ran upstairs to my room and tried to figure out what the hell had gone wrong. I thought I’d been so careful. I opened the email account I’d used to leak the information and stared at the sent email.

I wasn’t good enough with computers to figure out where the email had been sent from, but if the security analysts tracked it back to this house then that must be true. But how? I specifically went to the pub to use the public Wi-Fi. Finally, it clicked. The timestamp on the email didn’t look right. I remembered being at the pub at dinnertime and left by eight o’clock, but the timestamp on the email was ten to nine.

The attachment to the email was huge. I’d scanned in a number of pages using the high megapixel camera on my phone and while the image quality was high. It also meant the pictures took up a decent chunk of memory. I couldn’t tell for sure, but I guessed that the pub’s Wi-Fi was too slow to upload the photos, so when I hit send there was a delay in sending out the email. I’d immediately closed my laptop after hitting send and come home. My laptop would’ve reconnected to the Wi-Fi at home and finished sending email from there.

I laughed briefly through my tears. It was almost too incredible to believe. Caiden was going to prison because of slow Wi-Fi. Except that wasn’t really it. He was going to prison because he chose to protect me.

I tried to tell Dad the truth about what happened, but he didn’t want to hear it. He knew I’d been the one to leak the information but he’d much rather Caiden went to prison for it. Sheri might feel differently, but it quickly became apparent that my dad’s marriage to Sheri wouldn’t last long enough for her to have any influence over Dad.