Chapter Sixty-Seven Rae
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
Rae
GRANT’S DESK IS EMPTY when I get to work on Monday.
This is no surprise. He spent most of last week either in Dorothy’s office or in meetings. Sam apparently spent half the day with the two of them yesterday. And with the police… which is wild.
Literally, his side of the room looks like no one ever occupied it, much less sat there and watched me like a horny hawk. I hate it.
Unable to stand being in this office for one more second, I hurry out into the lobby and become aware of how chaotic everything is.
I turn as a smug Dane Wabash saunters into the lobby from the front entrance, chatting with a group of people who, it turns out, are the investors. Holy shit. What’s happening? Is that Dorothy’s daughter, Rachel?
“Rae!” Dorothy comes out of her office. “I’d love for you to sit in on this. We might need your input.”
“Oh. Of course. Sure. Sure.”
From the moment we file into the conference room and sit down, Dane lords it over Dorothy.
“Dotty’s the best,” he tells the three men and two women who make up the group of investors while his wife looks on.
“She’s been begging us to give her grandkids.
” He reaches out to chuck his wife under the chin but stops when he catches Dorothy’s death glare, instead smoothing his hand over his fresh-looking haircut.
“Can’t wait to retire and be the doting granny she was meant to be, right, Dotty? ”
“Let’s begin.” There is not an ounce of bonhomie in Dorothy’s expression as she looks around the conference table.
“Right. Well, we all know Sugar has been in a downward spiral for the last few years.”
What? This is patently untrue. The company’s profits have steadily grown. He’s flat-out lying now?
Dorothy, usually not one to keep her mouth shut, folds her arms across her chest and settles deeper into her chair to watch.
He attacks her leadership skills, her lack of innovation, her limited capacity as manager, and then he attacks her character.
When he mentions that she’s an old-fashioned matchmaker with the heart of a homemaker, the rage pushes me up to standing, ready to protest, like someone in an old courtroom drama. That’s when the door opens.
I’m literally half standing when Grant walks in, followed by two women in suits. He nods at Dane.
“Mr. Dane Wabash?”
“What is this? What’s going on?”
“I’m Detective Rosa Ortíz, Richmond Police, Cyber Crimes Division. This is Forensic Accountant Bethanne Wilson. We’d like to ask you a few questions, sir.”
Dane’s smug, corporate a-hole golfer tan turns a sickly gray. “Can’t you see I’m in a meeting?”
“I’m afraid it can’t wait, sir. We are in the middle of a serious criminal investigation.” I squint at the woman she introduced as Bethanne. Forensic accountant? Have I seen her before? I swear she looks familiar.
“Well, I’m not going. This is bullshit. You can’t make me. This is an extremely important meeting. My investors have come all the way from—”
“I’m sure we can answer all your questions here, Detective,” says Dorothy, wearing her first smile of the day. “The investors won’t mind, will they?”
Everyone shakes their head aside from Rachel Gold—or is it Wabash?—who pushes her chair slightly back from her husband’s.
“Thank you.” Ortíz turns to Dane. “Please tell us where you were, sir, last Wednesday night, September eighteenth, between the hours of ten p.m. and two a.m.”
“What? Why? No. I want an attorney.”
Ortíz shares a long look with the accountant.
“You are welcome to an attorney, sir, but we’re just asking questions at this point.
We spoke with your wife this morning, who confirmed that you were not home at those specific times.
Nor on September tenth at ten p.m. We are currently investigating alleged bank fraud, wire fraud, identity fraud, computer fraud, computer invasion of privacy, and you are a person of interest in those—”
“Fine! Fine. You win. I’ll come. But you’d better get ready because I will not sit back and allow you to perpetrate this witch hunt. This is harassment. I’ll be talking to my lawyers.”
Lawyers? Plural. My god, this man is really atrocious.
He turns to the investors, who are looking decidedly queasy now.
I glance at Rachel, and she looks pissed. She also looks like she might have known this was coming.
“I’m not responsible for any of that. If anyone’s guilty here, it’s him.” He points at Grant. “And her.” His attention moves to Dorothy. “She’s mismanaged this place like you wouldn’t believe. Treats employees better than her own daughter. Than us!”
Rachel rolls her eyes. Wow. Okay. This is unexpected.
“Do you know what their end-of-year bonuses are like? It’s insane. Highway robbery. She’s stealing from you to pay those. It’s robbery! Fine, though. Fine, I’m coming. I’ll come. We can pick this back up later. Just let me—”
“Now, Mr. Wabash.”
Dane stomps out, followed by the two women. Bethanne Wilson throws me a sly wink as she makes her exit, and in a flash, I know exactly where I’ve seen her: at Off the Cuff. I think I recognize her from my first time at the club.
This is wild.
“What’s going on?” asks a woman about Dorothy’s age, who’s been following the proceedings wide-eyed. Company legend says that Dorothy reached out to friends for seed money back in the day. I’ll bet this is one of the people who loaned it.
“This is Grant Bowman,” Dorothy announces to the room. “He’s the corporate security expert I called in when my son-in-law first mentioned rumors of a Sugar App data breach.”
“Apologies for the interruption.” Grant nods at the assembly, plugs in his laptop, and turns to the screen.
“I’m sorry to inform you all that you have been lied to, repeatedly, by Dane Wabash.
I’ve compiled the evidence proving his embezzlement from Sugar, as well as funds he siphoned from Ms. Gold’s personal accounts.
Mr. Wabash has worked to tarnish both the company’s and Ms. Gold’s reputation.
His efforts to oust Ms. Gold as CEO have potentially impacted the company’s image as well as team morale.
I also want to lay your minds to rest regarding the breach of user data.
While data was accessed—illegally—it was not disseminated. ”
Grant’s eyes flicker as they briefly meet mine. He looks exhausted but strong. Unbeatable.
“The data stolen from the Sugar servers was not, in fact, user data, but a dummy list uploaded for security purposes.”
A list of names appears on-screen. I scan it, expecting to find nothing special, and then cough out a shocked sound. If there’d been coffee in my mouth, I’d have spit it all over.
Jean Valjean
Betty Rizzo
Velma Kelly
Eliza Hamilton
Percy Blakeney
Henry Higgins
They’re all musical theater names. Every single one of them. With email addresses beside them and, past that, credit card numbers. Those all fake, obviously.
Matilda Wormwood
Agatha Hannigan
The list goes on.
“This is ridiculous,” one of the men cuts in.
“It would be.” Dorothy looks at the people who came today to watch her fail. “If Dane Wabash hadn’t used my personal computer to access this list while both my partner and I were away. On business.”
“When was this?”
“This week,” Grant replies, moving on to another slide. This one is a video. “This footage is from the camera on the house next door to Dorothy’s residence. Taken while the entire Sugar staff was accounted for.”
“At retreat,” I whisper.
“At the yearly retreat.” He gives me a look.
“We were prepared for the possibility of an inside job. We had not, unfortunately, considered that it might happen at Dorothy’s residence instead of remotely, or here, in the offices.
However, we now have log-in times and footage of Mr. Wabash arriving at the location, as well as his fingerprints on Dorothy’s home computer.
That, along with the multiple dummy payments made on his behalf, is more than enough for a conviction. ”
“And here”—Grant hands folders out to all five investors—“are your buyout packets.”
Someone gasps. Dorothy’s ex-bestie looks sick to her stomach right now. Good. She should be. This is what betrayal looks like.
“Thank you, Grant.”
“Thank you, Dorothy.” Grant picks up his computer and gives the room one last look before heading out. Do his eyes linger on me a split second longer than the others? Maybe. But I can’t think about that right now.
“In light of the events leading up to today, as well as the clear breakdown in communication between us—dear investors—please understand that this is a onetime, formal buyout proposal from me. Please get back to me within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours. I urge you to accept what are excellent terms.” She’s standing there, giving Patti LuPone as Evita vibes, and it takes every bit of my restraint not to slow clap.
“Thank you for coming. Please see yourselves out.”
Cue the standing ovation.