6. Digital Detective Work
DIGITAL DETECTIVE WORK
CALLUM
At nine the next morning, Seattle's typical July drizzle has transformed into a proper downpour, water sluicing down my office windows in sheets.
The gray light makes the room feel like we're underwater—appropriate, given I'm drowning in hashtag reports and viral metrics.
"Tell me again how many sonnets were written about my eyes?" I ask, scrolling through Alana's morning summary.
Karina leans over from her desk, pointing to a particularly alarming statistic.
“Twenty-one published on various poetry platforms, but the trending favorite is 'Verdant Depths,' which compares your gaze to, and I'm quoting directly, 'a Scottish loch where maidens have drowned since time immemorial. '"
"Romantic."
"If you like your compliments with a side of manslaughter."
We've been at it since dawn, combing through every angle of the viral posts.
Right now, only one work objective is on my mind…
To find the culprit before the MacTavish board meeting in five weeks.
If I can prove this was targeted corporate sabotage rather than an internal leak, the acquisition proceeds without a hitch.
I glance at Karina, who's wearing the same focused expression she had at dinner last night.
In the unforgiving fluorescent light, I can see the shadows under her eyes, carefully concealed but visible when she tilts her head just so.
She's been here since before I arrived, coffee already made, screens already lit.
She catches me looking and raises an eyebrow. "Problem?"
"Did you sleep?"
"Enough," she replies, turning back to her monitor. "I've been running keyword analyses on the viral posts. Something's not adding up."
"What do you mean?"
"The early posts—the ones that just used #KiltedCEO—they have a different linguistic pattern than the later #KiltedCasanova content."
I wheel my chair closer. "Different how?"
"The tone, for starters. The early stuff was professional admiration with a hint of thirst—something like 'CEO Callum Abernathy demonstrates strategic thinking at tech summit #KiltedCEO.
' But the newer posts read like bad romance novels—'His forest-green eyes promise secrets only the brave dare discover. '"
"Jesus."
"Not to mention the timing patterns," she continues. "The first wave came during business hours. The explicit content? All posted between midnight and 4 AM."
I lean closer to her screen, our shoulders almost touching. "Two different people?"
"That's my guess. But there's something else." She pulls up a window of code. "Look at the metadata embedding."
I study the lines of HTML and JavaScript, the digital fingerprints that track how content spreads across platforms.
Something clicks.
"The secondary posts have encrypted trackers," I say slowly. "They're designed to manipulate algorithm prioritization."
She turns to me. "Exactly. This isn't amateur hour…These are professional-grade engagement hacks."
"May I?" I gesture to her keyboard.
She surrenders her seat, and I slide into the still-warm chair, fingers flying across keys.
The familiar rhythm of writing and debugging code centers me, drowning out everything except the puzzle before us.
I navigate through security logs, authentication patterns, and system timestamps, losing myself in the hunt.
"There," I murmur eventually. "Look at this signature."
Karina leans over my shoulder, close enough that I catch the faint scent of something citrusy—her shampoo or perfume. "What am I looking at?"
"This encoding pattern. It's sophisticated—military-grade almost. I've only seen it a handful of times."
"Where?"
"Corporate espionage cases." I turn to face her, suddenly aware of how close we are. "This isn't just someone trying to embarrass me. This is targeted."
Her eyes widen slightly. "You think someone's trying to sabotage the MacTavish acquisition?"
"It fits. The timing is suspicious. Who benefits most if this deal falls through?"
She straightens, eyes narrowing. "MacTavish's competitors? Your competitors? Or..."
"Duncan himself," we say simultaneously.
"He could be driving down the acquisition price," I explain. "Make me look like a punchline, question the company's stability, then swoop in to 'rescue' the deal at a discount."
"That's..." She pauses, considering. "Actually plausible. And extremely calculating."
"That's Duncan. He once convinced a rival CEO to sell by arranging for his prize racehorse to lose six races in a row. Man nearly had a breakdown."
"Remind me never to own racehorses."
"Noted."
I'm about to dig deeper into the code when my office door bangs open, revealing Alana laden with what appears to be a small forest of flowers and several paper bags emitting the distinct aroma of fresh pastries.
"Morning hashtag delivery!" she announces, dropping everything onto the conference table with way too much enthusiasm. "We've got three dozen roses from the Scottish-American Heritage Society, scones from that bakery on Fourth that's renamed their blueberry special 'Abernathy's Eyes,' and?—"
"Please stop," I interrupt.
"—a collection of poems from the street performers who've set up outside our building," she continues undeterred, producing a stack of handwritten pages. "They're taking turns reciting odes to, and I'm quoting directly, 'the Caledonian Adonis of Corporate America.'"
Karina releases a cough that suspiciously sounds like a giggle.
"There are street performers now?" I ask, dread mounting.
"Just four," Alana replies. "A guitarist, a violinist, a guy with bagpipes—he's quite good, actually—and a spoken word artist who's doing some sort of interpretive dance while reciting sonnets about your jawline."
I pinch the bridge of my nose. "Security hasn't removed them?"
"They tried. The performers claimed First Amendment protection and threatened to livestream being 'silenced by the corporate machine.' PR advised against creating another viral moment."
"Smart call," Karina agrees.
I stare at her. "You're enjoying this."
"I'm a marketing professional. This is literally unprecedented engagement." She has the decency to look somewhat apologetic. "Also, it's objectively hilarious."
Alana begins backing toward the door. "I'll just leave these here. Also, Mr. MacTavish called again. Said he's reconsidering the valuation metrics in light of...recent developments."
"Did he sound smug?" I ask.
"Like a cat in a dairy shop,” she confirms, then disappears.
I turn back to Karina. "We need to move faster. If Duncan's behind this?—"
"We need proof.” She nods. “Something concrete connecting him to the posts."
I stand, pacing across the office. "The code signature is distinctive, but not conclusive. We need to trace it back to the source."
"Tracking IP addresses?"
"Won't work if they used proper anonymizing techniques. And based on this code..." I gesture at the screen. "They definitely did."
"What about linguistic analysis? Professional writers have distinct patterns."
"Good thinking. But we'll need more sophisticated tools than what we have here."
Her eyes light up. "I know someone who might help. My sister Viktoria works in cybersecurity. She specializes in digital fingerprinting."
"Can we trust her?"
"With my life. She's the best in the business, and she hates men who abuse power." She winces slightly. "No offense."
"Plenty taken, but I'll survive." I check my watch. "Can she meet today?"
"Let me call her."
While Karina makes the call, I turn back to the computer, diving deeper into the code.
Minutes pass in concentrated silence until a sudden burst of bagpipe music from the street below shatters my focus.
"What in the bloody?—"
The distinctive notes of "Scotland the Brave" waft through the windows, surprisingly well-played.
I stride to the glass, peering down thirty floors to where a small crowd has gathered around four performers, just as Alana described.
The bagpiper, wearing what appears to be a homemade kilt fashioned from plaid curtains, stands at the center.
"Is that...?" Karina joins me at the window.
"Yes," I confirm grimly. "And he's wearing my face on his shirt."
She squints. "I think those are actual lyrics they're performing. Listen."
We stand in silence as the distant but distinct sounds of an original composition titled—if the crowd's enthusiastic chanting is accurate—"The Ballad of the Kilted One" rises to our window.
"This is a nightmare," I mutter.
"It's not terrible," she offers. "The rhyme scheme is actually quite sophisticated."
I turn to stare at her, and something about my expression must be comical because she bursts into laughter—real, unfiltered laughter that transforms her pretty face.
For a moment, the especially composed professional vanishes, replaced by someone lighter, more carefree.
It's ridiculously and startlingly attractive.
"Sorry," she gasps, composing herself. "It's just—your face?—"
"Delighted that my suffering amuses you."
"If it helps, Viktoria can meet us at seven tonight. Her office in Belltown."
"Perfect." I step away from the window as the bagpipe reaches a particularly enthusiastic crescendo. "The sooner we solve this, the better."
As I turn back to my desk, my foot catches on the edge of the conference table, sending me stumbling forward directly into the flower delivery.
Roses scatter across the floor in slow-motion disaster. I manage to catch myself on the table edge but not before knocking over a vase of water, which splashes across my shirt and pants in a spectacular display of undignified flailing.
When I right myself, soaked and surrounded by fallen flowers, Karina is watching me with undisguised amusement.
"Don't," I warn.
“I said nothing,” she retorts, a smirk forming inch by inch.
"This doesn't leave the room."
"Of course not." She retrieves a handful of tissues from her desk, offering them. "What happens in the office of the Kilted CEO stays in the office of the Kilted CEO."
"I hate everything about this."
"I know." She kneels to help gather the scattered roses, and I join her on the floor. "But look on the bright side—we might have our first real lead."
Our hands brush as we reach for the same flower, and there's that jolt again—the same unexpected connection I felt at dinner.
Her gaze lowers before she blinks. “Um, you have some…”
“What?” I glance down and realize that the water spilled all over my pants. And crotch.
You can practically see the outline of my…wee man.
I grab a box of tissues nearby, dabbing. “Fooken hell…”
Karina pulls back quickly, all business once more.
“I’ll let you tend to…that. So, uh, seven tonight," she says, rising and depositing an armful of roses on the table. "Viktoria doesn't like tardiness."
"I'll pick you up at six-thirty," I reply, still on my knees surrounded by flowers and water, feeling ridiculous yet somehow less alone than I have in months.
From outside, the bagpipes reach their triumphant finale, punctuated by enthusiastic applause.
"They're not going away, are they?" I ask resignedly.
She looks down at me, a mixture of sympathy and amusement in her eyes. "Not a chance. But at least now we know why."
And just like that, our trajectories lock into place—united by suspicion, corporate intrigue, and the world's most mortifying social media campaign.
Duncan MacTavish has no idea what he's started.