Ozzie speaks and all the voices quiet down to listen. “Looks like everybody’s here now, so we can get started.”
I surreptitiously check my watch, making sure I’m not late. I’m relieved to see that it’s exactly eleven-thirty.
“I’d like to begin with Blue Marine.” Ozzie looks at Lucky and me.
Thankfully, Lucky takes the lead. “As you all know, Jenny and I headed over to Blue Marine Wednesday night and cloned all their computers and got access to their server. I’ve analyzed some of the data that we found, but I’m pretty sure Jenny has more detail for you.” He swivels his chair to face mine.
I try to sound normal when I respond, but I have to clear my throat twice to get my voice to work properly, my first two attempts at speaking sounding more frog than human.
“Yes, so, as Lucky said, we did some work on Wednesday night. We had a schematic of the office and the various computer systems that were in place, and cloned everything. I spent quite a bit of time on the cloned systems to see what I could find, and there was one station in particular that caught my attention.”
I reach into my file folder and pull out the report that I typed up, embarrassed that I only have three copies. I hand one to Lucky and the other to Ozzie, using the third one as a reference for myself. “I’m sorry I didn’t make copies for everyone.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Thibault says. “Just give us the highlights. We can look over a more detailed report later if we need to.”
Thank God for Thibault. He has a special knack for making me feel more relaxed. I can’t even look at Dev right now, though; I’ll probably forget how to speak English if I see that dimple.
“Okay. So, like I said, there was one station that caught my attention. I detailed it in the first paragraph there.” I glance at Ozzie and Lucky, verifying that they’re looking very intently at what I wrote for them in the report. So far I don’t see any funny expressions, so I think I’m good with the first paragraph. Yay for me.
“The employee who works at this spot is named Anita.”
Lucky looks up at that moment with a sharp hiss of breath.
Thibault is shaking his head. “Tsk tsk,” he says, leading me to believe this is a very bad sign. Did I do something wrong?
Ozzie ends the mystery for me. “Anita? Isn’t that the wife of one of the owners?”
Thibault answers. “Yes. I believe she is. Right, Lucky?”
Lucky is nodding. “That’s my understanding.” He looks at me. “Keep going.”
I nod before picking up again. “Okay . . . where was I . . . ?” I use my finger to find my place and then flip to the back of the report to remind myself what’s there. I take a couple of moments to decide how technical I want to be with them. I don’t want to shortchange my work, like May said, but I also don’t want to act like I’m showing off. It’s easy for me to geek out and for people to get the wrong impression.
I stare at the paper as I continue. “Right. Okay. So, you can take a look at the more detailed screenshots that I provided at the end, and the more technical details, but in essence she had hidden some files using special software with a pretty heavy-duty encryption tool on her local drive, and in these files and via some other sources online, I found documentation that seems to suggest that she has created several entities, which I verified through the Department of State do exist. Each of them shows her as the sole owner. I cross-referenced this with the payments that Lucky tagged in the system as suspicious, and they’re all linked. Every one. She’s been paying herself for services that appear as if they were rendered but were more than likely not rendered at all or were rendered for significantly less money than she paid herself.”
I pause, giving them a few seconds to absorb the information, before continuing. “She did try to hide her identity, and she might have gotten away with it, but . . . she didn’t.”
“I don’t get it,” says Toni. “What do you mean by that?”
“What I mean is, she probably had help. Either she or someone she knows is a pretty sophisticated computer user, and there was some degree of legal work done too to hide the various entities and the ownership of them. The info I needed to find was not available as a matter of public record. But I found it. She just got unlucky, I guess. Most people would have missed it or wouldn’t have been able to access it.” Yes, I am a computer badass, and I’m not afraid to admit it. Frank should have never let me go.
“Did you hack into someone’s computer?” Toni asks, as if she doesn’t believe it.