Time to Control (26 page)

“And one of the questions we asked
you guys while evaluating was what your backup scenario was.”

“Yep.
 
He took them all out.
 
Deleted the operating system so we have
to rebuild the linux box before restoring from tape.
 
That'll take most of the day.
 
Deleted both staging and development, so
we can't copy from there.
 
Face it,
we gave him a road map to destroy the company.
 
And today's no coincidence,” I added.
 
“He wants to screw with us and ruin the
buyout.”

My phone rang, and I recognized
Joseph's cell phone's number.
 
This
wasn't going to be a fun call.
 
I
picked it up and launched right in to what I had found, not giving him a chance
to start yelling at me.
 
Eddie's
look of pity was getting to me, so I turned around and faced out the window so
he couldn't see me start to tear up.

“I'm sorry sir, he's royally
screwed us.
 
We can see if anyone
has an older copy of files saved on their personal computers, but past that,
we're at the mercy of however long it takes Kyle to rebuild the backup server.”

“Can't you just put the drive in
one of the other servers?”

“No sir, the rest are Windows
machines.
 
The tape drive isn't
compatible.”

“Why isn't that server backed up?”

“Sir, the odds--” my voice cracked,
and I swallowed the lump in my throat.
 
“The odds of this happening were slim.
 
Any day to day data loss we could have
covered.
 
This... this was an
insider's knowledge of our network.
 
The hacker--” I wasn't going to blame Alan by name, but I knew it was
him-- “knew our network structure, knew our server setup, knew what we monitor,
and what actions we would take.
 
He
covered them all.
 
There's no way we
could have known, nothing we could have done.”
 
I grabbed a tissue from the box on the
window ledge.

“What about that online backup
system you wanted to get?”

The tissue fluttered to the ground
as I whirled around in my seat.
 
“Ohmygod, I forgot about that.”
 
I held the phone away from my ear as Joseph shouted at me.
 
“I'll call you back, sir.”

“Schroeder?”

“Not now, Eddie,” I snapped at him,
hurriedly going online to login to the storage system.
 
A few clicks later, I sat back,
happy.
 
“Thank God.”

“You got it restoring?”

I nodded, and dialed Joseph
back.
 
“Sir, mission critical sites
will be back up in about half an hour.
 
If you can authorize me to tell Kyle to shut off internet access for the
rest of the office, we can use the entire pipeline to download the rest of the
sites in...maybe one to two hours, instead of four or five.”

“Absolutely,” he told me
instantly.
 
“Get them up, do
whatever it takes. Who do I need to call on this, the police?”

I mouthed the word to Eddie, who
reached his hand across for the phone.

“Good morning, Mr. Maloberti, this
is Edward Valenti-Kirby.
 
The FBI
handles cybercrimes.
 
I have a
friend at the Bureau; would you like me to give him a call to expedite matters?
 
Certainly, sir.
 
See you when you get here.”
 
Eddie came around the desk to hang up
the phone, and stopped to give me a long, hard kiss.

“You were wonderful, babe.”

I trapped him in my arms, and he
knelt down next to my chair.
 
I
scooted to the edge so I could hug him fully.
 
“Eddie, we need to go.”

He looked at me in confusion.

“I don't think I wrote that note to
myself to get the online backups.”
 
My eyes met his, and mine were on the verge of panicking.
 
“At least, not yet.
 
I thought I had forgotten that I wrote
it because of the concussion that weekend.
 
But now – if I hadn't gotten it, we would be totally hosed
today.
 
I think we're supposed to go
back right now and write that note to me.”

“Whoa, that's...whoa.”
 
He pulled out me arms and paced, running
a hand through his hair.
 
“Our
future selves put the note in place so that we could go back to put the note in
place?
 
That doesn't make sense.”

“I don't know how to explain
it.”
 
I downed the forgotten can of
Coke, relishing its caffeine.
 
“It
just seems right.”

“We could go back there and see the
note written.
 
You may have done it
and just forgotten,” he warned me.

“I don't think we can take that
chance.
 
What if we break history by
not going?”

“How do we even know when to go?”
He asked, bewildered by the entire concept.

“I know, remember?
 
I found the note the Monday after we
were at my parents.”

He knelt back down next to me,
taking my hands in his.
 
“You sure
about this?”

No.
 
Yes.
 
No.
 
“Yes.”

The trip was brief – no note
had been written yet.
 
I wrote it
down quickly and we returned home, trying not to think of the paradox.

The office finally filling with the
other technical staff kept me from thinking about anything other than the
hack.
 
Eddie wandered off to call
his buddy at the FBI, and I called a mini-meeting of the tech staff to fill
everyone in.

“So until we hear from the FBI, we
all should be hands off,” I concluded.
 
“I don't want to do anything that will affect their investigations.
 
I also don't want to hurt us with the
buyout release in--” I looked down at my watch, and grimaced -- “an hour and a
half, so we need to get sites back up.
 
I've been on my computer this morning, and have the downloads going; I
say everyone else should stay off of their workstations just in case.”

“Can we go home?” Josh asked.

I glared at him.
 
“No.
 
Go to the break room and watch tv or
something.
 
Just stay off of a
computer.
 
Kyle, go get the
bandwidth reallocated.”
 
He nodded,
and left the room.

I left the conference room and went
back to my office, putting my head down on my desk.
 
Eddie came in a few minutes later and
went behind me, rubbing my shoulders.

“Mmmm, don't stop.”

“You did real good babe, I'm proud
of you.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Alex – my friend –
called the local field office, and they are sending agents over.
  
You need to be ready to justify
why you think it's Alan.”

“It's obvious, isn't it?”

“I don't know babe, I don't know.”
 
He patted my shoulders to indicate the
massage was done, and went back around the desk.

I stretched, popping my spine where
he relaxed the muscles.
 
“How about
we hop over to London and sleep for a few hours?”

Eddie laughed.
 
“Tempting, but probably not a good
idea.
 
You be that rested after this
much running around, they'll start to suspect you.”

Chapter Ten

“Ms. Kelly, where were you Friday
night between one and three o'clock?”

Elizabethan
London.
“Um, at home with my husband.”

“And what were you doing there?”

I blushed. “Eddie was staying the
night.
 
Agent, do you really need me
to answer that?”

Agent Simmons had the good grace to
blush himself. "Just answer the question, ma'am.
 
For the record."
 
He tapped the microphone set up on the
conference room table where they were meeting.

Seeing
what my husband looks like in -- and out of – velvet hose.
 
Okay, can't say that.
 
Bluff it, Schroeder.
 
Make him embarrassed instead of
yourself.._
 
"Testing
position 24.
 
Or was it 42?
 
I don't remember.
 
We have a full book to get
through."

His blush turned into flaming
red.
 
I was proud of myself for not
blushing that much, but I was most definitely flushed from anger at having to
answer the question in the first place.

“Do you have the ability to login
remotely?”

I shook my head.
 
“My home computer is a Mac.
 
Eddie's to, for that matter.
 
We have Windows servers.”

“There is software you can install
to still be able to connect, you know.”

“Shh, don't tell Joseph.
 
I like having an excuse not to work from
home.”
 
I smiled at the FBI
agent.
 
“Surely I'm not a suspect,
right?
 
I got everything back up
this morning.
 
In plenty of time
before the press release was issued, in fact.”

“Just in time for you to play the
hero, and also to hurt the forensic investigations.”
 

Holy
crap, I am a suspect,
I thought.
 
“Why on earth would I want to do that?”

“Ms. Kelly, let me tell you what I
think.
 
I think you got tired of
being overworked and under appreciated, and decided to play the hero.
 
After all, you knew how to bring the
company down.
 
And since you had the
online backup, you knew you could restore things in time.”

My eyes narrowed at him.
 
“And I planned for Matt to come in
early?
 
How do you explain
that?
 
If I came in at my normal
time, I'd still be restoring right now, instead of defending myself against
your baseless accusations.”

The middle-aged agent waved the
insult away. "We've looked in the logs.
 
The activity came from your
computer.
 
Your IP.
 
Care to explain that?"

"I was in bed with my
husband," I repeated.
 
"I've said that.
 
I
think we're done here.
 
If you have
any more questions for me, you can address them to my lawyer."

The agent finally released me when
I refused to answer any more questions, and I went straight into Eddie's arms
when I left the conference/interrogation room.
 
"You're going to need to call your
lawyer," I told him, my voice shaking as much as I was.
 
"They think I did it."

"What?
 
That's insane."

"Yeah, he didn't really like
it when I said that, though."

"Oh, baby, you didn't,"
Eddie chuckled.
 
"Please tell
me you lawyered up before you dug yourself in too deeply."

"Yeah.
 
I didn't say anything after that.
 
It wouldn't have been pretty if I
had."
 
I squeezed him and ended
the embrace, as tempting as it was to hold on and never let go.

I wandered over to the tech
department, and poked my head in my door.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, you're not
allowed in here," the technician working on my computer told me.

"That's fine.
 
Can you do me a favor, though?
 
Agent Simmons said the activity came
from my IP.
 
At the risk of telling
you how to do your job, can you check my event log, and make sure the machine
was even on at the time?
 
And I'm
sure you'll check the router logs to see what NIC address the activity was
from, just to be safe."

"Schroeder, leave the nice man
be," Joseph appeared at my elbow and motioned me to follow him.

"I didn't do it Joseph, you
have to know that," I plead.

"Who would think that?
 
It was Alan.
 
The FBI called the night security guard,
and he told them he let Alan in Friday night.
 
He didn't know Alan didn't work here any
more."

I stopped and stared at him.
 
"It was Alan?
 
Really?"
 
I marched back to my office.
 
"I'm not coming in -- don't
worry.
 
But if you open the second
drawer on the right, there's a box of chocolates that I haven't tossed
yet.
 
Alan -- the suspect -- sent me
those a few weeks ago.
 
I think he
poisoned them."

"What?"
 
Agent Simmons pushed past me and took
the box the technician removed from the desk.
 
"Why do you think that?"

"They came with some roses;
the card was on top of the box.
 
They didn't come from Eddie, and there's pinpricks in the bottom of
each.
 
Alan's been harassing me
since he got fired.
 
It was a safe
assumption that something was wrong with the candy.
 
I never tossed them because I didn't know
how to properly dispose of them; I didn't want someone to pull them out of the
trash and eat them."

"And you didn't call the
police?"
 
Simmons examined them
closely.

"It didn't seem that important
at the time," I said lamely.

"Attempted murder not important?"
 
He asked, lightly.
 
"We'll take a look, but I can't
promise anything."

"So what happens now?
 
Can we get back to work?"
 
I looked between Joseph and the FBI
agent.

Simmons shook his head.
 
"We'll need to confiscate the
PC's.
 
We'll lock out access to the
servers and make a copy of the drives, so that things can stay up.
 
We have some police officers going down
to pick Alan up right now; if he confesses, it'll make things go much easier
and quicker.
 
It'll be a couple of
days before I can give you an update."

"Can I go to New York?
 
Spend some time with Eddie there?"

"Make sure we have your
number, but yes.
 
Just don't leave
the country without asking first."

"Joseph?"

"Sure, you've earned it.
 
Be back next Monday.
 
Checks from the buyout will be cut on
Thursday -- you just want yours direct deposited?"

I blinked.
 
"Um, I guess so."
 
The agent wandered off, and I dropped my
voice.
 
"Let me know what
happens to Alan, will you?
 
If they
catch him, if he confesses?"

The CEO nodded soberly.
 
"You should have told me about the
chocolates.
 
I think it's a good
idea for you to go to New York, out of Alan's reach.
 
Just in case."

I shivered, and went to find Eddie
to take me home.

One nice thing about having money
is that Eddie had no problems paying for a last minute airfare.
 
While I knew my deposit later in the
week was for a substantial sum, I still couldn't bring myself to do last minute
prices.
 
But on Eddie's dime, well,
why not.
 
Gets me out of Dodge, I
thought.

Packing was rather quick -- I
hadn't yet replaced the suitcases from the fire.
 
I had my laptop bag, though, and tossed
some essentials in there.
 
While
Eddie had bought some new clothes for himself, he ended up leaving them down
here for future wearing.
 
I made him
grab our traveling bag, as I had room in there for another outfit.
 
I considered tossing another in, but
Eddie reminded me that I could go shopping in New York.
 
That brightened my day considerably.
 
Shopping in New York with no
budget?
 
Fun.

It was early evening by the time we
arrived at Eddie's building, and we went right to the couch and collapsed on
top of each other.

"I hate flying."

Eddie kissed the top of my
head.
 
"I'm starting to not be
a fan of it, either."

I belatedly kicked my shoes off,
and Eddie readjusted so that he was on the bottom and I laid on top of him, my
legs between his.
 
I felt his hands
at my waistband.
 
"Eddie, I'm
too tired."

"I was just adjusting your
shirt.
 
You hate the air conditioner
blowing on your bare skin, so I was making sure you had none exposed."

I tilted my head up at him and
caught him in his lie.
 
"Nice
try."
 
He chuckled, and took
advantage of my waiting lips.
 
Enjoying myself, I scootched up a few inches to line our heads up
better.

"Mmm.
 
I thought you were tired."

"I am.
 
I'm sleep-kissing."
 
We made out for a few minutes, then I
flopped my head down on his shoulder.

"I don't want you to quit your
job." "I want to quit."
 
We blurted out at the same time.

I giggled.
 
"You first."

"You did great today.
 
You are really, really good at your job.
 
And I don't want you leaving
it.
 
Not for me."

"And I don't want to do this
anymore.
 
The FBI agent was right --
I'm overworked and under appreciated.
 
While I like what I do, I'm....well, I'm scared to work at the company
any more.
 
Alan's won.
 
He's scared me off."

"Baby--"

"No, I'm serious.
 
I don't know what he's going to do next,
and I don't want to know.
 
I can't
take the chance that he doesn't get arrested for this.
 
It's not worth it.
 
Even if you weren't in the picture, the
buyout money, plus the compensation from being underpaid, would be enough to
keep me going for a while.
 
A long
while.
 
Long enough to find a new
job, in a new city."

He stroked my hair.
 
"You want to move, too?"

I nodded.
 
"There's nothing for me there.
 
I moved to Dallas for a job, and the job
was all that was keeping me in town.
 
As long as you're okay with selling the townhome after having just
bought it, yes, I'd rather move to New York."
 
I paused.
 
"I'm certainly not moving back in
with my parents, which I'm sure is what they would prefer."

He shuddered for me.
 
"Heavens, no.
 
They'll be lucky if we spend a night
under their roof again, much less have you live there."

I ran a finger along his scruff; he
didn't have time to shave that morning, and he hadn't the day before, either.
 
I idly wondered what he looked like in a
beard.
 
Or would it be too scratchy?

"Schroeder?
 
What are you thinking?"

"Hmm?
 
Oh, nothing."

"Nothing?"

I bit my lip.
 
"Would you mind if I didn't work
for a while?
 
I know I've had a ton
of days off recently, but I need a vacation.
 
I need to get everything under control
again, and I don't know if I even can.
 
If I tried working now--"
 
I looked away.
 
"I'd
lose it, more than I have already."

Eddie rolled us over so he was on
top and he could force me to look him in the eyes.
 
"Sweetheart, you're fine.
 
You haven't lost control.
 
You can work tomorrow and I know you'll
be fine.
 
You can also choose to
never work another day in your life, and you'll be fine."

"It's just..."

"What?"

"I don't know.
 
Losing my apartment, this mess with
Alan, quitting my job.
 
Marrying
you, traveling through time -- my God, no wonder I feel like I'm going
crazy.
 
I just...I need time to
think."

"About us?"
 
His face stiffened.
 
I cupped his fuzzy cheek in one hand.

"Will you stop that?
 
I'm here to stay.
 
I'll be honest, it is still blowing my
mind, but in a good way.
 
If I stop
to think about it, it does freak me out.
 
I only met you a few weeks ago.
 
It seems like a lifetime, though.
 
If you'll still have me, I'm here.”