Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
I sat in the cafeteria at my usual table in stunned silence. There had to be an explanation for all of this. Files didn’t delete themselves. Calls didn’t happen spontaneously. Someone was behind this. But how was I going to prove it? Furthermore, who would want to do this to me?
“Hey. Are you okay?” Gretchen asked as she sat down next to me. “I didn’t hear what Mr. McDuffie was saying, but based on your exit, I take it he wasn’t happy.”
“No, he wasn’t,” I said, reaching for a napkin and wiping the latest round of tears away. I didn’t like to cry in public, but this morning had been too much.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know,” I sobbed. I pursed my lips together to try to control my cries. It didn’t help much, so I gazed down at a loose strand of fabric on my pants. “Someone had to have gotten onto my computer and phone and done this stuff to set me up.”
It dawned on me that she had access to both my computer and phone on Friday after we had left. She could’ve done something. I looked up at her, and to my surprise, she had a couple of unshed tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry. I just hate that he’s treating you like this when I see how hard you work. You aren’t one to screw up. He should believe you,” she said, wiping away her tears.
Either she was a really good actress, or she wasn’t the person who had messed with my stuff. I believed the latter. She was way too nice to do something like this.
“What’s going on?” Michael asked as he, Natalie, and Grace came over to the table and took seats.
“Mr. McDuffie was an ass,” Gretchen said.
“Don’t say that.” I refused to have my situation sour my friends’ opinion of our boss.
“Why? It’s true. Someone fucked with Theresa’s computer and made a phone call from her line to move up a meeting. All to make her look incompetent.”
“Are you serious?” Natalie asked, leaning her head back in disbelief. “Why would someone want to do that to you?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. All that I do know is that Mr. McDuffie doesn’t believe me when I say I’m not the one who did it.”
“Looks like you’ll need to find a new job,” Grace said as she pulled out a sandwich from her bag.
She was right. I couldn’t continue working here if Caleb didn’t believe me when I said I didn’t do something. There was also no way I could continue dating him if this is what he believed me capable of. More tears started to cloud my vision as I knew what I had to do.
“I can check our program to see if the deleted files are in there,” Michael chimed in.
“You can?” I asked, wiping my eyes with a tissue.
“We have a program set up as a fail-safe for employees. Any files deleted stay in it for up to a month. We can also check the phone recordings.”
I abruptly stood up from my chair. “Come with me, now.”
“But lunch—" he said half-heartedly as I grabbed his arm and pulled him after me.
“Michael, if you can prove what you just told me, I’ll buy you lunch for a week at any restaurant you want.”
“Okay, okay.”
I let go of his arm and we took the elevator up to the top floor. The door to Caleb’s office was shut, but I didn’t care. He didn’t believe me, and that needed to be corrected. I barged right in.
“Theresa? What the hell?” he exclaimed as he turned from his wall of windows and stared at Michael and me.
“Michael works in the IT department, and he has a way to prove my innocence.”
“I can come back at another time, if now doesn’t work for you, sir,” he said from the doorway.
“Please go ahead and show me what Theresa is talking about.”
“Alright.” He walked over and sat down at my desk. He started typing away on my computer, pulling up different screens.
I chanced a peek at Caleb, and he was staring at me. His jaw wasn’t clenched anymore, and his face wasn’t as red. Hopefully, he had calmed down and realized how much of an ass he had been.
“Okay. Here you go. These files were deleted from your computer last Friday,” Michael said, pulling up a folder filled with items.
I glanced through them and wanted to cheer.
“There they are!” I said, pointing to the screen.
Michael clicked on them, and sure enough, there were all the files Caleb had requested for his meeting, organized the way he preferred. I snapped my head up to look at my boyfriend.
“Does it say when they were deleted?” Caleb asked, his expression unchanging.
Michael moved the mouse and opened up a new box. “Friday at three forty-seven p.m.”
“Ha!” I yelled. “That couldn’t have been me. We were already on the road by then.”
“And the phone call?” Caleb asked.
“Give me a moment to open that program,” Michael said as he navigated to a different screen.
I was starting to get angry that Caleb wasn’t making any attempts to apologize. I wanted to tell him off, but decided to wait until we had the answers we needed.
“Do you by chance know what time the call was made on Friday?” Michael asked.
“No, I don’t,” Caleb answered.
“It would’ve been the only call from my phone that day. I didn’t make or receive any others,” I said.
“That helps. Thank you,” Michael said as he typed away on the computer.
A new box came up on the screen. “Okay. Here’s the only call that was made from your phone on Friday.
I’ll play it.” He clicked a button, and a woman’s voice came out of the speakers.
It certainly wasn’t mine. It left a message stating everything Mike Amperage had told Caleb.
“Is that Grace?” I asked in disbelief, recognizing her voice.
“Funny, I was thinking the same thing. It does sound quite a bit like her,” Michael agreed as the message ended. “Do you want me to email that to you, sir?”
“Yes, please.”
“All right, done,” he said, pushing a button.
“Thank you very much for your help. Please keep this information to yourself for the time being. I’ll make sure to note this to Ray in your next performance review. It won’t be forgotten,” Caleb said.
“I appreciate that, sir. I’ll head back down to lunch. Theresa, if you need anything else, let me know.”
“Thank you for saving my ass,” I told him.
He winked at me and walked out of the room, not aware I was being literal.
Caleb walked over to the open door, closed it, and turned back to me. “I owe you a major apology, Theresa.”
“Yes, you do,” I said, not even trying to hide the anger that was bubbling to the surface.
I crossed my arms. “How could you think for a second that I’d lie to you or make a phone call like the one Grace made?
Do you really think me capable of either of those actions?
Because if so, then I’m done as your assistant and as your girlfriend. ” It was hard to keep from yelling.
“You’re absolutely right. I was way out of line for not trusting you. I am truly sorry.”
He walked over to me and held his arms out. I wasn’t ready for physical contact yet. I turned away and looked out at the downtown skyline.
“I was caught off guard this morning by all the changes happening. Then, when you said you didn’t have the files ready, I thought you were repeating the same mistake as before and you were trying to cover it up.
That made me angry, but not horribly. When I spoke to Mike Amperage, and he told me about the phone call and shared the number with me, that’s when I got pissed off.
I set up the phones on this floor, so I’d specifically know which console was used to make a call.
When I saw it was yours, it added gasoline to the fire already built inside of me. ”
He took a deep breath and continued. “But I should’ve talked to you first before coming to any conclusions. I should’ve believed you when you told me you had the reports done last week. I truly am so sorry, Theresa. Can you ever forgive me?”
I turned around and, meeting his eyes, knew I didn’t want this to be my last time gazing into them.
“Yes. I forgive you.” I held up a hand to stop him from approaching me. “This doesn’t mean that I’m not still mad at you. You hurt me deeply, Caleb.”
“I understand, and I want to make it up to you.”
“Let's start by figuring out how Grace got access to my computer and phone.” I was still baffled at the idea of her being behind this. I knew she was upset that I was dating Caleb, but she’d never seemed capable of something so malicious.
“She had to do it on Friday, once we were both gone. Let me phone Phil, my head of security, and see if he can pull the tapes from then,” Caleb said, walking over to his desk and picking up his phone.
“You do that. I’m going to try another way,” I said, going over to the door and opening it up. Sure enough, Gretchen was back at her desk. It didn’t surprise me that she’d want to be close by. “Hey, did Grace come up here on Friday?”
She furrowed her brow and looked up at the ceiling. “Um… yes, she did,” she said, her gaze meeting mine. “She said she wanted to leave a little present on your desk. I totally forgot to ask you what it was with how everything went this morning.”
“Did you hear her make any phone calls?”
“No. Why would she be doing that?”
“Were you at your desk the entire time?” Caleb chimed in, coming to stand behind me.
Gretchen shook her head. “No. Grace started coughing badly and asked if I could run to the cafeteria and get her a water bottle. I was gone for less than ten minutes, though. What’s going on?”
“She’s the one who seems to have set me up for failure today with Mike Amperage.”
“You really think she’d stoop that low? I know she had a crush on Mr. McDuffie, but you really think she’d sabotage your work because she was jealous you were with him and not her?”
“We’re about to find that out,” I said as I started to head to the elevator.
Caleb grabbed my upper arm to stop me. “Not yet, Theresa.”
“Why not?” I asked, rather annoyed that he was getting in my way. “I’d like to hear from her exactly what she was thinking when she decided she wanted to blow up my life here.”
“Let Phil confirm that Gretchen didn’t have anything to do with this. Then we can go speak with Grace,” he said in a hushed voice, so only I could hear.