He chuckled. “With my money, no doubt. That’ll be easy enough to look into. I can call them and figure that out.”
The computer was on now and finished setting up. Asher plugged the USB drive into the side and waited for it to load. A window popped up asking him what he wanted to do. He clicked on the button to open the folder and view the files.
This was it. Whatever Beatrice and Solomon were planning, we’d soon figure it out. I stared at the screen, ready for anything.
Ready, that was, except for what happened. Another window popped up, prompting Asher to input a password. He looked to me for the answer.
“I don’t know?” I shrugged. “I didn’t think there’d be a password.”
Asher sighed. “I’m not sure what Solomon’s passwords are for corporate accounts. He’s high enough up on the ladder to have his own private set up instead of needing to use the public ones like most employees. I can have someone from the tech department take a look at it. Maybe they can crack it, but…”
“No,” I said. “There’s not enough time. We need to figure…” I tapered off. Wait. Maybe…? “Let me try.”
He moved his arms back and gave me free reign of the keyboard. “Feel free.”
I typed it in. “P-A-S-S-W-O-R-D.”
I hovered the mouse over the “OK” button, then clicked. The flash drive accepted my password and allowed us access to Solomon’s private files.
Asher laughed, impressed. “How did you know that?”
“It’s one of the most common passwords people use,” I said. “It was just a guess.”
“I like it,” he said. “Now let’s see what we have here…”
We browsed through the files. A lot of it was scattered, but all of it told a story. Small bits and pieces, worked together. Contacts Solomon had made, people who were interested in making money and weren’t against destroying Landseer Enterprises to do it. Multiple press releases, pre-formatted for what Solomon intended, all explaining in lurid details the fall of Asher’s billion dollar company. Notes on Beatrice Landseer’s stock profile, and how she’d privately been selling off her stock for the past year, and the last batch to go which would coincide with the beginning of her and Solomon’s master plan.
“Bed bugs,” Asher said, confused. “It’s so simple.”
“It’d be devastating, though. If he manages to infest all of your vacation resorts and hotels with bed bugs, it’d cost a lot to fix.”#p#分页标题#e#
“We have insurance for those situations, but it seems Solomon has plans for that, too. Apparently we haven’t paid for the policy on most of the hotels for months now and they’re due to let it lapse into nothingness for non-payment if the problem isn’t rectified soon. Also, apparently there’s more than a few people lined up to sue me for emotional and physical damages when they contract the bugs after their upcoming stays at my resorts.”
“It’s because you don’t look at the reports he gives you,” I said, shaking my head.
“Well, apparently so. I thought…” Asher quieted down, staring at the screen.
“I know,” I said. “It’s not your fault. You had no reason to think this would happen.”
“It’s just so sudden,” Asher said. “It’s not even that I trusted him, though that’s a large part of it. I trusted Beatrice, too. I… I should have seen this coming, though. I remember small signs now that I think about it. I never really knew which friends Beatrice was going to visit, and I had Solomon’s business expenses paid without a second glance at them. They were never too excessive, so I didn’t think I had anything to worry about. I should have paid closer attention, though. I should have…”
“Shhh,” I said. “No, it’s alright. It’s not your fault, Asher.”
He remained silent. I was worried about him. I could never understand what he was going through, or what he must feel right now, but I didn’t want him to be upset. I wanted him to be happy, even if that was hard. He still had a lot of things left in life, right? Maybe this wasn’t a good spot to be in, and his marriage was all but ruined, along with the loss of one of his higher ups at Landseer Enterprises that he thought he could trust, but…
Well, he had his house still. Two of them. And technically he still had money. For now, anyways, as long as Beatrice and Solomon’s plan didn’t come to fruition. He had Jeremy as a friend, which I thought was a pretty big thing to have.
And… if he wanted—though I didn’t know if this would work—he still had me, if…