“Find some courage,” she muttered to herself after Rachel left.
Dammit, she would do this. She was so good at putting her feelings above others, avoiding anything that made her uncomfortable or brought up her own bad memories. Not this time. She owed it to Bree.
Erin stood up, straightened her jacket, girding herself, then she rounded her desk.
The girls were planted by the coffeemaker. The girls, that’s how she thought of them, Yvonne, Rachel, and Bree, who’d left her office to follow the scent of fresh coffee as if it were brewed by the pied piper.
“Oh my God, Yvonne. That’s so great.” Rachel threw her arms around the older woman, hugged her tight.
Rachel was so . . . solid. A great mom, a good employee, a decent friend. Erin admired her, envied her.
“Did you hear?” Rachel said, suddenly seeing Erin and pulling her into the circle with just her voice.
Erin didn’t used to feel like an outsider. DKG had been her home and everyone who worked there part of her extended family. Now, she was just the boss. She didn’t know how to retrieve the sense of family.
Like Jay, it was gone forever.
“No, I didn’t hear the news.” She infused her voice with enthusiasm. “What?”
“Yvonne’s going to be a grandma.” Rachel gave her another quick hug.
Erin gulped. “Congratulations. That’s great.” She’d known the holidays would be bad, but after the holidays almost felt worse, probably because of what happened with Dominic in the hotel room. But she would not let Yvonne or any of them see it. “I’m so happy for you.”
Yvonne beamed, eyes glittering with unshed tears. “My youngest daughter wrapped up a ‘welcome baby’ card in a box, and that was my Christmas present.”
“Oh, that was the best present you could have had.” Rachel’s excitement knew no bounds.
Even Bree gave Yvonne a hug. “When’s the baby due?”
“July.”
Jay had been a July baby.
She saw the moment Yvonne remembered, the moment the sparkle in her eyes dimmed. Her gaze flashed to Erin as if she’d done something terrible, as if she’d personally made sure her grandchild would be born in July so that Erin could feel the punch of it.
“Oh, wouldn’t it be fun if the baby was born on July fourth,” Erin said, forcing a bubble of excitement into her words.
“Yes,” Yvonne answered, then clapped her hands. “But let’s get to work, girls. There’s a ton of work to catch up on.”
What was it that Rachel had said the day she drove Erin to the airport for the Orlando flight? That she knew she wasn’t ever supposed to mention Jay or even sympathize. It wasn’t just Dominic’s memories Erin had stolen. It wasn’t even her own. She’d taken them from everyone at DKG. She’d even managed to put a blot on Yvonne’s happiness over her grandchild with her inability to face her guilt and pain.
Life had stopped for her so she’d made sure it didn’t go on for anyone else. If only she’d let Dominic talk long ago. She felt sick. If only . . .
“Bree,” she said as the girl headed back to her office with a fresh cup of coffee.
“I’m running the inventory revaluations now with the new standards.” Bree tucked a fall of dark hair behind her ear. “I’ll have the change calculated for you in couple of hours.”
“Thank you.” Erin took a deep breath. She could have let it go at that. She didn’t. “How are you doing? How’s your dad?” She could hear the loud beat of her heart in her ears over the sound of her own voice.
“Fine, just fine.” Bree stared at Erin’s throat instead of meeting her gaze.
Erin had used the stock phrase so many times herself when Dominic tried to get her to talk that she knew exactly what it meant. Nothing was fine. “Well, if you need anything, please come to me.”
“Sure, Erin, thanks,” Bree said to the carpet.
Erin touched her arm. A deep pain had blossomed in Bree’s eyes when she looked up. “Bree, you can come to me. I spoke out of turn last week, and I want you to know that I believe in you. I’ll help out in any way I can.” It didn’t make up for the tone of her accusations. “Let me know if and when you need time off, and we’ll take care of everything. I’ll support whatever you decide to do.”
“Yeah. Thanks. But it’s okay for now, Erin.”
Erin had to let her go. She didn’t feel better, but at least she’d found the courage to say something.
She stared across the room at the hallway leading to the engineering offices and the lab. Dominic had been in the shower when she left this morning. Now he was half an hour late. She was part terror over that, part glad for the reprieve.
It was one thing to face Bree and Yvonne. She wasn’t ready for Dominic. She might never be ready for Dominic. And yet, he was the one she most owed an apology to. If only . . .
“Hey, Erin, come here.” She was concentrating so hard, she jumped when Al suddenly appeared in the hallway.
“What?” That was all she could manage.
He smiled, waggled his eyebrows. “I think I’ve got it, but Dominic’s not here yet, so I gotta show you or bust a seam.” Then he disappeared.
She trailed him to Dominic’s office to find him playing with the computer. He signaled her around to watch over his shoulder. All she saw were listings of random numbers and letters, dates and times.
“Okay,” he said, pointing. “See this user ID?”
“Yes.” The seeming randomness coalesced into a recognizable name: ycolbert. He was looking at Yvonne’s user name. Her stomach sank.
Then Dominic appeared in the doorway, and the bottom fell out of everything. His thick hair was dry, his jaw smooth with a fresh shave. Even standing behind his desk with Al, she could smell her shampoo on him. He always used whatever she had in the shower, yet this morning, the scent on him turned her inside out.
What had he been doing between his shower and arriving at work? Why was he late? Where had he been? She was afraid to ask.
He looked at her, his face expressionless, then spoke to Al. “What’s up?”
“Dude, I have answers.” Al pressed his lips into a flat line. “Actually, I have more questions, but it’s all leading in the right direction.” He tipped his head, glanced up at Erin, and, as if sensing something was off, added, “You weren’t here so I was showing it to Erin.”
“Fine. Now you can get me up to speed.” Dominic moved around the desk so they were flanking Al in the chair.
Al filled him in. Dominic didn’t say a word as he deciphered Yvonne’s user name.
“Now most of her logons are coming from DKG’s IP address.” Al tapped the screen. “It’s her work computer.”
“Okay, I see that,” Erin said.
“Here’s her home computer. I verified the IP address.” He sat back, bobbed his head. “And I did a cursory check of when she claims she logs on from home versus the data you see here. It checks, mostly when she’s trying to get shipments out the door at a crunch time.”
Why was he drawing this out? Her head was starting to ache. She’d already blown a gasket and accused Bree. She wasn’t about to turn around and do the same thing to Yvonne.
“But see this?” He pointed to a completely different IP address, but didn’t wait for anyone to answer him. “For the last six months, Yvonne’s user ID has been logging on from this address the first week of every new fiscal month. It could be her using another computer somewhere . . .” He trailed off, shooting them both a dubious look that asked why Yvonne would bother with a third computer and only use it once a month.
Erin stared at the numbers and dates which were suddenly not so random at all. It wasn’t the first day of the new month. It was the fourth. After Bree had compiled all the month-end reports. “But that means—”
“Yeah. It means someone’s been logging on to your system once a month. They’ve been monitoring your cumulative sales figures. And your financials.”
35
“HOW WOULD SOMEONE GET H
ER PASSWORD?” DOMINIC STARED AT the damning screen, sick, tired, and all the rest of it. He and Erin had barely spoken over the weekend, the house covered in a silent pall. And now this. “The system requires that it’s changed every month.”
“She could have a malware on her home computer that’s tracking her keystrokes,” Al offered up.
Erin shook her head, her finger to her lips. “If someone was going to track her keystrokes, they’d be better off stealing her credit card numbers or banking password.” She narrowed her eyes at the monitor. “No, this is directed at us specifically.”
She was all professional and studious, dressed in a black blazer, black slacks, and a white blouse. She didn’t show a trace of what they’d done on the train. Nor a trace of any emotion for what he’d said to her in the hotel room. Nothing. Over the long weekend, he’d accepted that she was no longer capable of any real emotion.
It had died with Jay. Their marriage had died. The woman he’d loved was gone for good.
Al threw up his hands. “I’ve got a brilliant idea.” He flashed a look between them as if they were dunces. “Let’s ask her.”
For a moment Dominic thought Al was referring to Erin. Let’s ask her if she’s got any anything left for you, Dominic, or is it really all dead?
He’d gotten the message loud and clear in Reno.
But of course, Al meant Yvonne. “I’m not going out there and accusing her,” he said, his voice tight.
“We won’t do that,” Erin said so earnestly he wanted to break something. Why couldn’t she be that earnest for him, for their life? “She’s upbeat right now about her daughter’s baby. I don’t want to bring her down.”
“I’ll talk to her,” Dominic said. He knew how to be diplomatic with his employees.
“We’ll do it together,” Erin answered.
He stared at her over Al’s head. Together? Was he supposed to read something into that along with her steady gaze? They weren’t together. They were nothing. His bitterness swamped him. “Fine, whatever. I’ll do the talking.”
When Al rose with him, Dominic pointed to the chair. “You stay here, and try to figure out the origin of that IP address. A name would be great.” The main thing, though, was not making Yvonne feel they were ganging up on her.
She was in her office running her finger along a line she was reading on her computer screen. “Hey there, Dominic, Happy New Year.” When she saw Erin right behind him, her welcoming smile froze. “What’s up?”
Dominic struck a casual pose, leaning his hands on the back of the chair in front of Yvonne’s desk. “You know we’ve been having this patent problem on the through-coat gauge, right?”
“Yeah, Dominic.” Her eyes grew darker, wary.
Best way to handle it, get right to it, no questions, no accusations. “We’ve been wondering why the royalty they want to extort out of us so closely reflects our real sales numbers. Lo and behold, Al found a third IP address accessing the system through your user ID, and the only thing they were looking at was financial information.” Once a user logged on, the system tracked all movement.
“It wasn’t me,” Yvonne said immediately, her tone harsh, defensive.
“We know that,” Erin said just as quickly. “What we can’t figure out is how they got your password. Any ideas?”
“I don’t give my password to anyone.” Yvonne crossed her arms beneath her ample bosom.
“We know that, too.” Dominic pulled out the chair and sat. They were losing control of the situation. He leaned forward, put his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands, and looked at her over the top of his laced fingers. “But has anyone been in the office, a vendor or someone”—he shrugged, trying to put them on the same baffled level—“looking over your shoulder? It would have to be someone that comes by regularly. Because they’ve got to see it every time you change your password.”
“People sit over there.” Yvonne jabbed a finger at the chair he occupied. “Besides, Erin talks to the vendors, not me.”
He glanced at Erin; she returned the look. They had a moment of silent communication that said they were fucking this up royally. He resented that he needed her, but he did.
Yvonne’s office had only the one chair, so Erin leaned against the wall. “We’re stumped, Yvonne. We need your help because someone’s jerking us around and we don’t know who.”
We. They weren’t a we. His bitterness grew, choking him.
Yvonne tipped her head, stared at her monitor for a long moment. Then she licked her lips and swallowed. “Here’s the thing about my password,” she said so softly he had to hunch forward to hear. “I don’t change it.”
Dominic sat back with jerk. “But the system prompts you to change every thirty days.”
She pressed her lips together. “I know, but I was always forgetting it. The new password, I mean.” She huffed out a sigh. “So after I changed it, I’d go back in and reset it again to the old password.”
He stared at her.
“How long have you been doing that?” Erin asked.
Yvonne glanced from Erin to him and back again. “Almost since the beginning.”
Jesus. They’d been using the system for two years. He didn’t yell. He would not yell.
“Well, that was silly,” Erin said mildly. Too mildly. She was as close to an explosion as he was. Yvonne had been with them from the start. She knew better than that. But he supposed she’d gotten complacent, comfortable. And negligent.
“I sure as hell hope you change your bank password more often,” he said grimly.
She remained silent, and Dominic scrubbed a hand down his face. “Jesus, Yvonne.” He knew she didn’t like taking the Lord’s name in vain, but how could she be so unaware?
“I will from now on, Dominic, I swear it. I’ll change the password right now.” She blinked, close to tears, he thought.
He wanted to be angry. It suited his mood. But he couldn’t take it out on Yvonne. He couldn’t even take it out on Erin. “All we can do is have Al keep working on the IP address and see if we can come up with something that way.”
“I’m sorry, Dominic. I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
Yvonne’s words stabbed him straight to the heart. He’d thought the same thing the day he let Jay go on that school trip. Getting slowly to his feet, he felt a hundred years old.
Outside Yvonne’s door, the troops had scattered, keeping their heads low and out of the battle lines. Erin crossed the roundhouse, turning when he didn’t follow her. “I have something to show you.”
Whatever it was, he didn’t want to see it. Yet he entered her office just as she pulled out the middle desk drawer. The sheet of paper she held out to him shook in her hand.
It took him a moment too long to read and understand, to assess the full impact, so she told him what it said. “WEU wants to buy us out.”
He stared at her expressionless face, and something shot up from the deep pit of his anger, grief, guilt, and all the other stuff she wouldn’t talk about. “You want to sell DKG?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
He knew what she fucking meant. She was done. It was over. She wanted out, away, anywhere without him. He folded the letter, shoved it in his back pocket. “Let’s do it. Let’s get the fuck out of this thing.”
“Dominic, would you just listen—”
He cut her off. “I’ve listened enough.” He turned. “You can come with me, or you can sit here and wait it out.” He left without her.
He actually enjoyed that she ran after him, that she had trouble catching up. “But they didn’t even name a price,” she said as he slammed through the front door, the glass rattling in the heavy metal frame.
“I don’t give a damn.”
HE WOULDN’T LISTEN TO HER, NOT WHEN SHE TRIED TO POINT out that they didn’t have an appointment, that Garland Brooks might not even be there, that they should strategize about what they would say.
Hands tight on the wheel, knuckles white, he ignored her.<
br />
Erin finally shut up. She’d only shown him the letter because it made WEU’s campaign strategy very clear. Squeezing them for ridiculous royalties, threatening them with a lawsuit, it had been about eliminating the competition. DKG was stealing their market share; the solution, eliminate DKG. Weaken them with threats, hit them when cash was vulnerable, then offer to put them out of their misery by buying them. WEU could pocket their cash receipts the moment the sales contract was signed. Voilà, instant market share.
There was a part of her that wanted to say yes. Let’s just take it, let’s get out. She was so tired of fighting. But seeing the evidence of WEU’s dirty tactics, the fact that they actually had someone steal Yvonne’s password, she was suddenly as pissed as Dominic. They were on the same side, she’d tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen. To him, they’d been on opposite sides since they’d lost Jay. And everything she said or, more aptly, didn’t say, only cemented that.
She pushed back into the corner of her seat to watch him, the lines of his face tense, stark, his brows slashes of anger. They had done this to each other. It couldn’t be undone. It had gone too far, the tear in the fabric of their lives irreparable.
There was one space left in the guest parking outside WEU’s headquarters. Dominic rammed the gear into park. She had no clue what he was going to say to Brooks. In this mood, she didn’t put it past him to start a fight, fists and all.
He shoved through the lobby door and marched to the black-and-chrome receptionist’s desk. “Tell Garland Brooks that Dominic and Erin DeKnight are here to see him.”
She was a pretty brunette, her eyes wide with apprehension as Dominic hit her with a glower. “Is he expecting you, sir?”
“Please”—his face was strained, the courtesy costing him—“let him know we want to speak to him.”
Never taking her gaze off him, the brunette punched some numbers into her state-of-the-art switchboard equipped with Bluetooth. “Please tell Mr. Brooks that he has visitors in the lobby, Dominic and Erin DeKnight.” She listened a moment. “Thank you. I’ll let them know.” She disconnected. “He’s finishing up a meeting right now, but he’ll be down in a few minutes if you’d like to wait.” She pointed to a couple of black leather lobby chairs. “There’s coffee.”
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