Laina Turner - Presley Thurman 09 - Romance & Revenge (9 page)

Chapter 13

Sitting alone in the kitchen with my morning coffee, somehow I was the first person up, I had been going back over the conversation with John in my head. I was thinking about how and why an outsider would have accessed their files. It seemed a long shot, but John and Jared seemed pretty sure no one inside the company would want to do anything detrimental and had agreed they were a close knit group. I couldn’t imagine it either, which meant it had to be someone from the outside. If someone from the outside was getting Sleeping Bear Design information, maybe this was how? I didn’t know much about Internet security, except from my own days in corporate America where in the HR department we had security measures in place to protect confidential salary information and such, I just knew it was there. I didn’t know the first thing about how it worked.

Jim! I said to myself. Why didn’t I think of him before? Jim Dugan was the network security manager at my old job and he also ran a consulting business, testing security of other businesses by trying to gain access to their systems to see where they might need to beef up. It was a good gig, testing the companies on both ends. I bet he could help me or at least point me in the right direction.

I scrolled through the contacts on my phone. I was pretty sure I had his number somewhere. Ah! There it was. I pressed send and waited for him to answer, hoping it wasn’t too early.

“Jim? It’s Presley Thurman. It’s been a long time,” I said when he answered.

We got the catching up out of the way and then I told him what I needed help with. He said it sounded like a fun afternoon activity and he would see what he could do in terms of accessing the server at Sleeping Bear. At least if he could access them, and according to him accessing them wasn’t the issue, it was how difficult it was. He could give me an idea of the skill level needed which might help point me in the right direction. At least that’s how I understood what he said.

Jared padded into the kitchen where I was sitting with my phone and my laptop, and grabbed some coffee and sat down. “What are you hard at work at already this morning?”

“Sleeping Bear and thinking maybe someone did access your files from the outside.”

“You really think someone stole our ideas that way? That sounds like a lot of effort.”

“Honestly, no. It does seem extreme, but it’s worth checking out. Everyone seems convinced it can’t be anyone inside the company. So we need to look at all options. Since it happened, someone out there is responsible. A guy I used to work with, Jim, is willing to do me a favor to see what he can find out. He is an IT guy at my old company so it can’t hurt. While Jim is working on that, I need to finish my blog and then I would like to talk to Becky’s neighbor again.”

“Why?”

“See if she ever saw Glenda at Becky’s apartment or if she knows anyone who Becky was friends with who is diabetic.”

I looked at the clock over the stove. I had about two hours before the bi-weekly posting deadline for my food blog. I was cutting it close but no more than usual. I had everything together; all that was left was to finish writing the actual post and submit it. I needed to start on this now because sometimes I was quick and it easily came together and sometimes it took me forever. I kept telling myself to stop waiting until the last minute, and two hours to go was pretty much like last minute.

This one was on party snacks. What to do on a low budget that looked high end. I was normally a cheese ball and crackers kind of gal, so I had a lot of fun researching this one. Talking to friends of mine who had better culinary skills than I did and of course finding ideas on Pinterest, which could suck me in for hours. I loved looking at stuff on there. Last weekend Jared and I had enjoyed making a few of the snack items to photograph and luckily after several attempt we got some good shots. More thanks to Jared than me. I wasn’t much better at photography than I was at cooking.

I was staring at my screen contemplating the order of the pictures when Katy walked in, grabbed her morning cup of brew and sat on a barstool next to Jared, who had been patiently waiting for me to finish closing my laptop. I pushed it to the side, so as not to spill coffee on it, and looked at them both.

“What’s on your agenda today?” I asked.

“I want to stay here in my pajamas and be depressed, while waiting for your friend Jim to call back,” Jared said, taking a swig of coffee.

I rolled my eyes and looked at Katy. “Let’s ignore depressing Donna over there. What would you like to do?”

“I wouldn’t mind playing tourist if you’re up to it,” she said. “Sears Tower, Navy Pier, that sort of thing.
Take pictures, be annoying. That sort of thing.”

“That’s much better than sitting here being depressed,” I said pointedly to Jared. “Let’s get ready. We can do that on our way to Becky’s.”

“You want to go there again?” Katy asked.

“Yeah,” I said and filled her in on my plan.

“You guys go have fun. I wouldn’t be very good company anyway,” he said in response to our attempts in trying to persuade him to come with us. “I just want to sit here. Just call me the minute you find something out.”

An hour later, we were out the door, bundled up in winter coats and boots, and grabbed a cab to take us to Navy Pier. This condo now would be well above my price range and I was lucky to have it and the parking space that came with it. People who lived in the city often joked you could have a car or afford parking, but you couldn’t have both.

The cab driver dropped us at the entrance of the pier and even though it was cold, a temperature of around thirty really wasn’t all that bad for Chicago and there wasn’t much wind coming off Lake Michigan. It was beautiful with all the lights and Christmas decorations still up, a real winter wonderland. I had done all the tourist things when I had first moved here, but now I didn’t think about it. I was glad to be here taking it all in.

“Let’s go on the Ferris wheel,” Katy said excitedly.

I smiled, as the Ferris wheel was one of my favorite things here, too. When you reached the top, you could see for miles. Since it was early in the day there wasn’t a line and we quickly bought tickets and got on.

As we slowly went up, Katy gazed in awe. “Wow. You can see the entire city from up here. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if you could see Alkon.”

“Yeah, the view is amazing.” I felt my phone buzz and pulled it out of my purse and saw it was Jim.

“Can I call you back in five?” I said answering, not wanting to miss the beautiful view and figured a few minutes wouldn’t hurt anything. Putting the phone back in my purse after he said that was fine, I looked out to the beautiful expanse of city. “That was Jim. He
has some information for us.” I had filled her in earlier this morning on my conversation with him.

“Do you think he knows something?”

“We will find out in a few, but I’m sure hoping so.”

We enjoyed the view from the ride down the other side and then headed to the food counter where we could warm up a bit and I could call Jim back.

We each grabbed a Cinnabon, I never could resist anything cinnamon, and cup of coffee and found a table in the corner.

“It’s a good thing it’s early,” I said to Katy, taking a big bite of the cinnamon roll. “Or it would be packed in here and I would have a hard time hearing on the phone. Let’s cross our fingers that he has something good for us so we can get Jared out of his funk.”

I called Jim back and listened as he gave me the rundown on what he had found out. Thankful I had thought to call him.

“Thanks, Jim. You’ve been a big help. I appreciate it,” I said when he finished after a few minutes.

I set my phone down and turned to Katy who’d been eating her Cinnabon and listening to my end of the conversation.

“Well? Good news?”

“Yeah, I think so. He said anyone with basic skills, in computers that is, could access the Sleeping Bear database. That it was a very basic system and I should tell the owner it was in serious need of an upgrade. He said the odd thing was he noticed a user profile had accessed through a back end portal a few times when no other user profile had. He said it might mean nothing, but it might also be significant as well.”

“I have no idea what you just said.” Katy said.

“I didn’t either until he explained it. He said the system keeps log every time someone accesses it. So the administrator can see who has been doing what. It’s a basic security measure to track what people are doing online. This specific user has been accessing the server in such a way that doesn’t show up in normal channels, it’s a higher level access. So unless you went in the system like Jim did, you would never know this person had accessed anything. Jim said no one but a programmer, or IT person, or administrator would ever notice. Employees with regular access wouldn’t know about it, and the only reason someone would have to try and access this way would be because they wanted to keep hidden what they were accessing. He said in a company with higher security measures that back door would be locked, so to speak, and you’d have to be really good to get in. But there weren’t any security measures here.”

“So someone has been going into their system, someone who already works there, but doesn’t want anyone to know.”

“Maybe. Someone could have somehow stolen the user information and then used it. But it seems more likely that someone who works at Sleeping Bear is the one doing it. Jim said an outsider would have likely used different methods than an existing user profile.”

“Was Jim able to tell you who it was?”

“No, but I have the user name and the dates the user accessed the system.  We just need to find out who it belongs to. I’m sure John would know. Most companies have a master list of each employee’s log in information.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Katy said.

“I was wondering if we should talk to Jared first?”

“He’s still at home, isn’t he?”

“I think so. At least that’s where he said he would be all day. He said he was going to watch mindless TV and have his own little pity party, and the way he looked it sure didn’t seem like he was going to change his attitude anytime soon.”

“Then let’s go give what might be some good news!”

We went home and found Jared still in his pajamas, watching TV, eating Doritos, exactly as he said he would be doing.

I stood in front of the TV, my hands on hips, and just stared at him. “Have you been sitting there all day?”

“I’m practicing being unemployed. I didn’t realize how much crappy TV was on during the day. It’s horrible but I can’t stop watching. Back to back shows about who’s my baby’s daddy. Who knew so many people weren’t sure?”

“Well, stop. We may have some good news.”

Jared set the bag of Doritos on the coffee table and leaned forward, flicking off the orange dust on his shirt, which I pretended not to notice was landing on the floor. “I’m listening.”

“I talked to Jim and he found that someone’s been accessing the company files in such a way that no one would know.
Unless they were purposefully looking for it. It is back door access as Jim put it.”

“Really? So we were right. Someone is trying to sabotage Sleeping Bear Designs.” Jared’s eyes widened. “Who?”

“It’s not concrete proof that someone is trying to hurt your company, but it definitely looks more likely. We just have a user name of the person who has been accessing your database, so I assume John would know who the users’ names belong to and that would tell us who has been sneaking around.”

“Yeah, I would think. What’s the user name?” Jared asked.

“SBD1.”

“No way!” Jared exclaimed. “That can’t be right.”

“You know who that is?” I asked.

“It’s John’s dad. SBD1, Sleeping Bear Designs number 1. The rest of us have our first and middle initial with last name. But John’s dad and him have SBD1 and SBD2.”

“But why would he want to hide his accessing files?” Katy asked. “Wouldn’t he have full access to everything anyway?”

“There’s nothing for him to gain by trying to take down his own company is there?” I asked, thinking it was probably a stupid question, but one that should still be asked. I knew enough about business to know people often had crazy reasons for doing things.

Jared shook his head. “Not at all. At least nothing that would make sense. Until these few snafus the company has been profitable and John, Sr. has made his life this business. He’s a really nice guy; this is his legacy. He built Sleeping Bear Designs from the ground up. No, no. I don’t see him doing anything bad to us. Besides, last I knew him and his wife were touring Europe and have been out of the country for a couple months and aren’t expected back until February. It absolutely can’t be him.”

“Then someone must be using his information to cover their tracks, but why?” Katy said. 

Jared sighed heavily. “And this puts us right back to square one.”

“Not completely,” I said.

“Jim told me files had been accessed this way four times. He gave me the dates. Jared, when did you say the other pitches were? The other ones which were upstaged.” I had a thought come to me and wanting to see if I was on the right track.

“Let me see,” he pondered for a minute. “The first one was in March and the second one I believe was August. Why?”