Around eight, her phone buzzed and she glanced at it. Mitch. “Hello,” she said when she picked it up.
“Hey, where you at? I’m at your place.”
“Uh…oh shit! I’m sorry, Mitch, I got held up at work with something.”
“The work excuse, eh.” He laughed when he said it, but Phoebe knew he was upset.
“Really, Mitch, I’m sorry. I think I just found out that my boss is trying to cover something up.”
“What? Do you need my help? I run in some pretty high up circles.”
Could she trust him with this? Who else would she even go to? Her pirate friend…she didn’t even know what he did for a living except he worked for some big company that dealt with investors…and with her boss. As far as she knew, Yancey had no connections to Mitch.
“I might. Can you meet me here? I’ll have to meet you at the front doors to let you in.”
“Sure, I’ll be there in ‘bout twenty minutes.”
Phoebe hung up and tried to accept the fact that she was trusting Mitch. He had taken her to the hospital and sat in the waiting room the whole time she dealt with Doctor Chambers and the paperwork. He’d been good so far. There was nothing to worry about with him helping her out. The nagging voice in the back of her head said she should pick a man and stay with him. Either her mysterious pirate or Mitch. She couldn’t hang onto both forever.
But she’d worry about that when it came to a head.
Twenty minutes later, she let Mitch in the doors and headed back down to the archives room. “So far, I’ve traced back records he’s tampered with from five years ago. I don’t know what he’s trying to do and I can’t figure out what these files all go to yet. It’s a bit technical.”
“Well, I don’t know how much help I can be. I’m just a money guy,” Mitch said as he picked up a file off a nearby pile. “Damn—these pages…you can tell they’ve been modified. Look at this shoddy job.”
“You can tell that easily?”
“I have to be able to tell the difference pretty quick in my line of work. Saves us from fraud,” he muttered as he picked up another file. “This one too. You need to show these to someone.”
“Yeah, but who? I don’t even know what these are about yet.”
Mitch sat down on the floor and started to flip through all the files in one stack. “These are research notes, or at least they were. The dates, though…these are newer files. Someone’s gone in and manually changed the year. Looks like a new program or something…I can’t make out too much of it. But this—this is a patent for that research. And I can tell you right now, at first glance, it looks legit, but this is fake.”
Phoebe took the pages from him and shook her head. “This makes no sense. Why would he do this? His company has been successful the past few years. They’ve put out good products. Why start faking things now?”
“I know he’s eyeing some pretty big fish. Poaching clients from his rivals, or trying to, at least.”
“And these fake documents do what then? Legitimize what he’s doing?”
“No, but if someone tries to sue him, he’ll have proof that his patents either came out first or that his research was being conducted first…unless his research was conducted first and someone else is trying to steal it from him. He might think it’s you pulling the files so he’s taking them first.” He glanced at all the files on the floor, separated into piles. At least six of them. “You need to take these to someone, Phoebe…anyone.”
“To who? I’m just a file girl. No one will believe me. Even my boss thinks I’m up to something.”
He reached out and held her hand. “We’ll figure it out, don’t worry. If we’re going to be here for a while, I need to call my driver and let him know to take off. I’ll get us a cab later.”
She nodded, and he left the room, closing the door behind him.
***
Mitch waited until he was down the hall before he pulled out his cell and dialed a number. Three rings later, a voice finally answered. “Yeah, it’s me. We might have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“That person you were worried about? Yeah, she’s onto you. A bit more curious than you anticipated, I think. Told her what it looks like, but I don’t think she’s going to scare easy.”
There was a string of angry curses on the other end. “I hired you for a reason, Harper. Find a way to take her out of the picture or this is not going to end well for you or your company. Do you understand me?”