10. Chapter 10 Sabrina
Chapter 10: Sabrina
T he next morning, Sabrina stared at an email from Brian Renner, her heart sinking with each word. Not only was he demanding that she attend the big joint meeting between Dynamic Solutions and Taylor Industries on Monday to discuss the leaked documents, but he was letting them all know that DS expected her to present information on how the leak happened. She flopped her head onto the desk, running her fingers through her dark, wavy hair to swirl it into the chaos she felt inside.
She didn’t know how it happened. The early documents came from a thumb drive Veronica Taylor had been responsible for. Not that Sabrina was, or would ever, blame Veronica. She’d been chased through the woods by a crazy stalker. Sabrina was thrilled the woman survived. Fuck the thumb drive. But the thought of showing up at Dynamic Solutions huge headquarters and letting a bunch of old dudes ask her a billion questions as she tried to explain a leak that didn’t have anything to do with her didn’t feel fair.
Then there was the question of how Taylor Industries would handle the situation. Their contract with DS depended on their ability to securely maintain the software they were working on. No way would the company fire a member of their family, like Freddy or Veronica. But that meant there were limited options for who would take the blame. Considering Sabrina’s name was listed right beside Freddy’s on all the leaked documents, she was a prime candidate. The thought of being dismissed or blamed for the leak made her stomach churn.
There had to be some kind of clue about who had leaked the documents. They knew the person had gotten ahold of Veronica’s thumb drive, and they must have access to the paper files at HQ. That certainly limited the field of suspects, but it begged the question, why. Why would someone connected with Taylor Industries want to leak their secrets?
Sabrina pulled up the secure folder Freddy shared with her a few months ago. When Kurt was stalking Veronica, she’d gotten ahold of a file that no one had been able to make sense of, though it wasn’t like anyone had spent much time with it, either. Between the leaks, new security procedures, repairing the Chinese submarine, and keeping up with the usual, everyone at Taylor Industries was working long hours and feeling the stress.
“Hey, Freddy?” she snagged his attention from where he was reorganizing command sequences in his notebook beside her.
“Yeah?” He turned toward her while keeping his pen resting on the paper where he was in the middle of writing.
“Have you looked at that file from Veronica?”
It was enough for him to put down the writing implement, shove aside his notebook, and turn his full focus to her. “What file?”
She nodded toward her screen where she’d pulled it up. “This one.” It was currently showing the hospital file discharging Josh Baker after he’d taken one hell of a beating. “Why would Veronica or anyone at TI care about Josh Baker?”
Freddy’s face scrunched in thought, and Sabrina gave him a minute while she flipped to the financial report. It only showed an account number, so there was no way to know who the account belonged to, but whoever owned it was in serious financial trouble. The report provided monthly balances going back twenty years. When she scrolled all the way back to 2003, the account was healthy, but over time it diminished. Then, almost ten years ago, the balance dropped quickly, month after month, until the account became overdrawn.
“Flip to the pictures,” Freddy broke into her thoughts.
She did, though Sabrina had no idea what to make of the images. Two were obvious proof that Kurt had been watching Veronica and taking her picture without her knowledge. The third seemed innocent enough. It just showed TI’s headquarters, but it was recent. Considering Patrick asked everyone at the company, only to learn no had any idea about who may have taken it or when. Most of them figured Kurt had taken it while hunting down Veronica.
Freddy pointed to the fourth, and final, photo. “That’s Josh Baker,” he said, shocking her.
It showed a Jeep that was older than dirt and required a stick shift, but the focus was on the driver sprawled across the front seats with a blossom of red staining his shirt where he’d been shot.
“Wait, didn’t someone say this accident happened back in, like, 2002?” Sabrina checked.
“Yeah, it was the same night he and my dad secured venture capitalist funding for their company. We were all told he died in a car accident, but obviously that was bullshit.”
“So how does he have a medical bill from just a few years ago?” Sabrina asked.
Freddy squinted as he thought. “Joshie. It has to be.”
She raised her eyebrows and waved at him to provide a better explanation.
“Mr. Baker named his son Josh, too. He was always Joshua or Josh, while his son went by Joshie.”
Sabrina snorted. “I’m pretty sure that changed as he grew up.”
Freddy rolled his eyes at her but agreed.
“Everyone thought Josh Baker died in a car accident, but really he was shot?” She checked that she was understanding correctly. “What about his son? And what happened to his wife? They, or I guess she, at least had to know he was murdered, right? Was this a murder?” There were so many questions.
“I have no idea,” Freddy admitted. “I would think Mrs. Baker, Ellie, would have known the truth.” He frowned and thought. “I was young, but I remember the funeral. I joked about wanting to touch a dead body, but the casket was closed.”
“Is anyone looking into what really happened to him?” she asked wondering why this was the first time she was hearing about this. She’d have expected it to be a big, gossipy scandal as soon as Veronica got the picture and shared it with Patrick.
“That’s why Patrick only shared the file with me.” Freddy must have read the expression on her face.
“What about your dad?” Sabrina frowned and tried to imagine how Nathan Taylor would react to learning his friend and partner was shot. Or did he already know?
“I keep telling Patrick he needs to share it with him, but…” he shrugged.
“Why do you think he was killed?” she asked. That was the part that bothered her most.
Sighing, Freddy’s response was less than helpful. “No idea. Hell, it could have been random road rage for all I know. And until Patrick’s willing to talk to Dad about it, I don’t think there’s any way for us to learn more.”
His expression shifted, and Sabrina knew he was done talking about it.
Sure enough, Freddy turned back to his computer as he said, “Let’s worry about this whole thing with DS first, and then we can try to figure out how a guy died twenty years ago,” he suggested kindly. Then he stood, stretched, and added, “I’m going to get more coffee for both of us.”
As much as she wanted to argue, Sabrina’s thoughts drifted to the tree in her home and her mother’s situation. Freddy was right. She had more pressing problems to solve.
Closing the folder, she pulled up the project she was supposed to be working on, but she couldn’t focus. Everything she’d told Freddy about her phone call with her mom the day before had been true, but it wasn’t all of it. The tree only made Sabrina worry more about her mother living in a double-wide trailer in tornado alley, but no matter how much she begged or offered to pay for it, her mother would not consider moving into an apartment, townhouse, or condo.
Climate change was making each tornado season worse than the one before, and forecasters were already predicting terrible weather for her mom’s area in the next few days. If TI did blame Sabrina and fire her for the leaks to appease Dynamic Solutions, there was no way she could continue offering her mom help. Hell, she’d probably have to move back home and join her in that damn trailer. Her list of problems was even longer than her list of questions.
“You okay?” Freddy appeared beside her and added fresh, hot coffee to her mug.
“Is Patrick going to fire me?” she asked bluntly.
Freddy’s brows rose and he dropped into his chair beside her. He set the carafe on the desk before turning to face her. “No. I won’t let him. I already told him that if you go, I go with you. It was not you, and I won’t let anyone try to make you take the fall.”
“But what if it’s the only way to save your contract with Dynamic Solutions?” That was her real worry. The chaotic Taylor family might overwhelm her and stress her out with their drama, but they were all good people. She didn’t feel the pressure she’d experienced at her first job and felt secure in her position. But if Dynamic Solutions said they had to prove they’d stopped the leak… If Patrick were forced to choose, he’d be smart to let her go. If DS terminated the contract, she wouldn’t have a job anyway.
Sabrina lifted her head from the desk to see Freddy reading the email she still had up on her screen. His frown deepened with each line he read, and by the end, he was huffing and grunting. Turning to face his own screen, he pulled up his email and started clicking. “I got the same email,” he finally said. “I don’t think you should go to the meeting. Technically, I’m the lead for our department, so I should be able to represent both of us.”
Before Sabrina could point out all the ways her not being present could make the situation worse, both their computers dinged as another email came through.
All Hands,
As part of our preparation for the upcoming joint meeting between Taylor Industries and Dynamic Solutions, we need to do a full security audit. While we continue to investigate the source of our leaked R&D test results, showing the other companies we contract with all the measures we take to secure information will go a long way to regaining their trust until we find the real source of the leaks.
Over the next few days, we will be checking everyone’s file storage, encryption habits, and firewall settings. We are also asking that everyone bring their security tokens by headquarters to confirm that they are all present and accounted for.
Finally, we will be rolling out procedural updates over the coming days and weeks. I am asking everyone to embrace them from day one. Change is hard, but we do not have the luxury of languishing in our implementation of them.
Taylor Industries has been at the forefront of AI technology to direct robotic work for more than two decades and each of you has played a role in that success. We will overcome this challenge the same as we have those who have come before: with integrity, hard work, and a steady focus on delivering the best software available to our customers.
Thank you,
Patrick Taylor CEO, Taylor Industries
Sabrina felt the blood drain from her face, but when she looked over, Freddy was smiling.
“See,” he said cheerfully, “Patrick’s going to take care of it without throwing anyone to the wolves.”
He’d missed it. He didn’t see how much worse this made everything. Closing her eyes, Sabrina tried to imagine what kind of job she could get back in Nebraska. When she’d left for college, she swore she’d never move back, but here she was.
Feeling Freddy’s hand rest on her thigh, she peeked through her lashes as he asked, “Hey, what’s wrong? This is good, right?”
“Freddy, I don’t have my security token. I can’t take it to HQ.”
“Right, but that was because a tree fell on your house. I think that qualifies as extenuating circumstances. We’ll just report the loss to Veronica, and it will be fine.”
Sabrina picked at her brows the way she always did when she was nervous. “Freddy, don’t you get it? There are two names on the reports that leaked, yours and mine. Now, I have to tell them I also lost my security token but none of my other hardware was lost or damaged.”
She’d fucked up so bad. The tokens were new, and Sabrina hadn’t established a good home for hers yet, so she tended to carry it around and leave it in random places. When it hadn’t been on her desk with all her other work stuff, she’d just assumed it was buried under the tree in the kitchen or her bedroom, but she couldn’t prove it.
“Oh,” Freddy’s frown matched her own. “Where was it?” he asked. “In your house, I mean. If we know where it is, maybe we can cut down the tree to remove enough of it to make space for us to wade through the mess to find it.”
“I have no idea,” Sabrina confessed. “I don’t even know if it was in the kitchen or the bedroom. When it wasn’t on my desk with everything else…” she shrugged and trailed off as she tried desperately to remember what she might have done with it.
Freddy swore softly, “Fuck. Okay, where do you remember having it last?”
By the time they’d walked through her movements, their list of possible places for her to have left the token included HQ, the grocery store in town, her car, and the rubble of her home.
“I’m not letting Patrick fire you over this,” Freddy snarled.
“He might not have a choice.” Sabrina understood reality well enough to know that white knights weren’t real and sometimes life enjoyed delivering a swift kick to your ass, but she appreciated Freddy’s loyalty.
“No, I refuse to accept that.” His idealistic determination was part of what Sabrina loved most. While he wasn’t the carefree jokester his family saw, he wasn’t as jaded as her, either.
She smiled sadly. “You’ll need to have enough hope for both of us, because I don’t see how Patrick can afford not to make me the scapegoat here.”
“I can do that,” Freddy promised. “Let’s knock out the subjective command testing for Wils, and then we’ll head back to your place to poke around. We might even find the token sitting in your car and resolve the whole issue.”
Sabrina chose not to point out the unlikelihood of that. For now, she’d lean into his optimism.