Chapter 12 #2
He was right. If, for some insane reason, Gretchen was in on this, I didn’t want to leave her alone only to have her slip away while we were gone.
“Fine. Hopefully, he’s quick.”
“He will be.”
Gretchen was sitting behind her desk, watching us. “Everything okay?”
“Yes. I just have a phone call I need to make first,” Caleb said, walking into his office.
I marched over to Gretchen’s desk and wasn’t going to move until Caleb verified that she wasn’t a part of all of this.
“What the heck is going on?” she asked, turning her attention toward me. “Why do you think Grace is the one who set you up?”
“IT has a program that catches deleted files for the last month. The reports I had done were in it. They were deleted after Caleb and I had left for our trip.”
“Okay. But how did you get from there to Grace?”
“Because the company records any outgoing and incoming calls. Michael was able to log in and pull the records from my phone from Friday. He replayed a phone call made to Mike Amperage. It was Grace’s voice.”
Gretchen leaned back in her chair, looking deflated.
“I still can’t believe it. All of this is because you’re with the person she has a crush on?
There’s no other reason? Like, did you have a fight or something?
She always seemed fine with you when we ate together.
I didn’t get any jealous vibes from her then. ”
I shrugged. “I’m not aware of any issues between us. So, it has to be because I’m with Caleb and that didn’t sit well with her. You’ve worked here longer than me. What do you think of her?”
“I didn’t know her well before we started having lunch together. She’d stop by every now and then to drop off some report for Mr. McDuffie, but she was nice. Quiet.”
Caleb appeared at the doorway to his office. “Phil confirmed everything. He’s going to meet us downstairs. Let's go talk to Grace.”
“I’ll be back, and we can talk more,” I said to Gretchen, feeling like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.
I was having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that one of my friends was behind the sabotage against me.
It would’ve been devastating to find out Gretchen was also a part of it.
“You okay?” Caleb asked as we got onto the elevator.
“No,” I said, pressing the number four for accounting. “I want to know what the hell I did to make her want to do this to me.”
“We’re about to get our answers,” he said as the doors opened to the fourth floor. “Follow me.”
The flurry of activity on the floor came to a halt as employees noticed Caleb. He walked down a hallway, past a few offices, and stopped at one with the door open. He knocked to announce his presence.
“Hi, Mr. McDuffie. What a surprise seeing you here,” Grace said. She had a huge smile on her face. I had never seen her this happy.
“Grace, we have some questions for you,” Caleb said, and motioned for me to come inside.
Grace and I locked eyes. When she saw me, her ecstatic expression disappeared.
“Why did you go onto Theresa’s computer on Friday and delete reports?”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, tilting her head to the side. “I never did that.”
“Yes, you did. Gretchen told us how you went to visit her and then had her go downstairs to the cafeteria for a water. Just enough time to delete the files,” I chimed in.
“It sounds like she is the one you should be talking to,” Grace said with a sharp smile.
I clenched my teeth as I felt the anger inside of me grow. “Would you like to explain the phone call you made to Mike Amperage from my phone? We listened to the call, and it was your voice.”
She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
We had caught her red-handed, and she was going to continue to act like she had no clue what was going on. My blood was boiling. I was ready to let her have it.
I took a step toward her, but Caleb held up his hand to stop me. “We know it was you, Grace. I’ll give you one last chance to confess. Otherwise, I plan to press charges against you.”
She leaned back in her chair as if he had physically slapped her. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would,” Caleb said, in such a quiet and deadly voice that the hairs on my arms stood up. I had never heard him use that tone.
She stared at him for a moment, and then her shoulders slumped forward in defeat.
“I’ve been working here for over three years.
I’ve exceeded expectations. I’ve seen what the women you date look like—I dress like them.
I even dye my hair so it’s chestnut brown, like you like.
You were finally starting to notice me, give me attention, but then she got hired,” Grace said, sneering at me.
“I started eating lunch with her and her friends to try and make sure I could steer her away from you,” she continued.
“I thought it was working until she made her announcement that you two were dating. I knew the only way I’d get you to see that she wasn’t the one for you was to make her screw up.
Mark my words, she hadn’t done it yet, but she will. ”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked.
“Oh, please,” she spat. “You have the same amount of air in your head as a balloon. What he sees in you, I don’t know. I guess even geniuses can have their dumb moments.” She crossed her arms over her chest and gave me a once-over with her eyes.
Her statement was a verbal slap to the face. “Are you kidding me? Do you really think I’m that stupid?” I didn’t give her time to answer my question. “I’ve worked my ass off to get to where I am. I’m not some bimbo who is here looking for her MRS degree.”