by Lisa Harris
At least that is what he was trying to convince himself.
“You have to believe that kissing you was never on my agenda. It just…it just happened.”
He might have known that kissing her had been a mistake, but deep down he didn’t regret it. Even if kissing Danielle had only made him want to be with her more.
“We need to figure this out together,” she began, “but I’m not ready to pick up where we left off, or if I’m even able to think about something beyond friendship between us. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to do that again. You have to understand.”
He saw the hesitation in her eyes, along with the fear and vulnerability. He felt the same things, but the problem was that they had a bigger problem to figure out right now. Maybe when all this was over and life got back to normal…
“Mrs. Corbett?”
Danielle looked up at the officer.
“We are going to need a description of the person who broke into your store before we leave.”
“I’m sorry, but like I told the other officer, I didn’t get a good look at him. All I know is that he was about my height, maybe an inch taller, and a bit wiry.”
“Hair color? Anything that might help with the description.”
She shook her head. “It was still dark, and he was wearing some kind of hood that covered his head.”
“If there’s nothing else, then as soon as you’ve done a full inventory to see if anything was taken, you’ll need to turn in an official report.” The officer dropped his pen into his front pocket. “I understand that Detective Rodriguez is the officer working another case you’re involved in concerning identity theft?”
“Yes. We spoke to him yesterday.”
“I’ll be in communication with him, and we will discuss further about the possibilities that the two cases are connected. In the meantime, I would advise you to change security codes and passwords.”
Jason felt the guilt fester, wondering what he’d done. All their attempts to turn the tables on their hacker had only made him believe she had Garrett’s evidence. And possibly put her life in danger.
*
Danielle stared at the shattered window in the back room of the store. Besides searching the place, she was going to have to have the window replaced. Which would take both time and money.
“After my initial walk-through of the store, it’s hard to know what to look for,” she began.
Jason glanced over her. “There is always the possibility that whoever broke in dropped something that the police missed.”
“I suppose anything’s possible at this point.” She followed him into her office, which seemed the most logical place to start. Like her showroom inventory, she’d filled the space with an eclectic mixture of furniture and accent pieces she’d picked up over the years on her buying trips. Wooden storage cabinets with wicker baskets, a zebra-print storage bench under the window and her favorite—a funky wooden desk she’d decoupaged with vintage postcards.
But the normally neat office space was now a mess. The file cabinet had been ransacked, papers sifted through, drawers and cupboards lining the back wall left open. She’d clearly caught the intruder on his way out after most of the damage was done.
They worked in silence. Danielle sorted through files and paperwork while Jason did his best to help organize the mess. After an hour, the rain had finally stopped, and the sun was peeking through the line of clouds.
Jason stood up and stretched his back. “Anything?”
She shook her head. “Far as I can see nothing is missing.”
He took a step backward and tipped over the metal garbage can beside the desk. He started to pick up the mess then stopped. “When is the last time the trash was taken out?”
Danielle looked up at him. “I have professional cleaners come in every Saturday night. The staff is supposed to take out the trash during the week, but if we’re busy it doesn’t always get done.”
“So how many days?”
“I don’t know. Beginning of the week, more than likely. Why?”
He pulled out an orange wrapper. “This is a Zotz Fizz candy wrapper.”
She shot him a blank stare. “I have customers coming through here all the time, and you wouldn’t believe all the gum and wrappers they leave. Half the time they don’t even make it into a trash can.”
“I’m sure that is true, but one, this is your office where I assume most customers never see. And two, do you know what this is?”
She shook her head, still not getting his point. “A candy wrapper of some kind.”
“Garrett’s favorite candy he ordered online by the box. He had this crazy habit of keeping a stash in his pocket while he worked.”
Danielle frowned. “Are you trying to tell me you think Garrett was here in my office?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. This can’t be another coincidence, Danielle. Garrett was here in your store.”
TWELVE
Danielle fingered the empty candy wrapper. She’d never liked solving puzzles with missing pieces. Growing up, her mother had spent hours working on them on the card table in the living room. But instead of relaxing, Danielle had always found them frustrating. Hunting for matching colors, searching for the right pieces… Somehow, there always seemed to be a piece missing.
Today had proven to be exactly the same. Everything that had happened over the past few days had left her with unanswered questions and a growing frustration she didn’t know how to resolve.
She dropped the wrapper back onto the desk and looked up at Jason. “Let’s work through this. Why would Garrett come here?”
“The more I think about Garrett coming here, the more it makes sense, actually. Not only was he here in Pacific Cove. He called you. When you hung up on him, maybe he thought he could make you believe him if you talked to him face-to-face.”
The reasoning didn’t add up. “If he was looking for me, he didn’t try very hard. I’m here most of the time, and even if I was out, there is always an employee who could pass along a message.”
“Maybe someone didn’t want you to know he was here?”
“Again why? I’m not ready to simply blow off your theory, but he’s clearly not the only person who eats this particular candy.”
“You’re right, but considering the situation, I still don’t think we can simply chalk it up as a coincidence.”
“Maybe there is a way to know for sure.” Danielle hurried over to the laptop sitting on her desk and sat down in her office chair. “I still need to go through the footage from this morning’s breakin, but if we can find Garrett on the security footage, as well, we might be able to see who he spoke to.”
Danielle logged into her security account and her inbox, hoping they’d finally found their first real break.
“How long are your videos accessible?”
She clicked onher inbox. “Fourteen days. Longer if there is footage I want to save. Otherwise everything is automatically overwritten.”
“Which means that there is a chance that if he was here, we will still be able to access the video he was on.”
“And today’s intruder, as well.” Danielle clicked through the screens, then stopped.
“Jason…”
He leaned over, resting his elbows against the edge of her desk. “What’s wrong?”
“They’re gone. All of them.” She tried refreshing the page, with no luck. “Every bit of footage from the past two weeks has been erased.”
“Let me take a look.”
She moved out of the way so he could sit in the chair in front of the computer, then shoved back a strand of hair from her face. “This is impossible.”
“Apparently not, because you’re right. There is nothing in the trash folder, nothing in storage…it’s all been wiped out.”
Temples throbbing, she pressed her palm against her forehead, wanting to scream. “How could this have happened? To erase security footage from the hard drive you have to enter a code. It’s
supposed to be a security system, completely inaccessible to anyone else.”
“Who has the passwords to access the system?”
“No one.” She shook her head, trying to think how someone could have done this. “I thought it was safer that way.”
“Where do you keep your passwords?”
“I have so many to keep track of…” She unlocked the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a small notebook. “I keep them in here, but everything is written in code so even if someone finds the book, they wouldn’t be able to figure out the codes. At least that’s what I thought.”
Danielle sat against the edge of her desk. Either she’d been careless, allowing someone to figure out her password, or the hacker had found a way to access her video surveillance.
Jason leaned back and thumbed through the book. “At this point, it looks as if the footage was erased for one of two reasons. Either Garrett’s visit, or this morning’s breakin.”
“Or both, if it is our hacker. Though I’m assuming he would have had the ability to erase the footage without being in the store.” She looked up at Jason. “If he could transfer money from my home equity loan, finding out my employee record would have been easy. Just like hacking into my security system and erasing any record that he had been here.”
“You have a point.” He tapped his fingers against the desk. “Your surveillance system works from IP-based cameras that enable you to view the footage from a remote location, right?”
“Correct.”
“Which means if you know what you are doing, it is possible to erase the files remotely,” he explained.
“But there isn’t any way to know for sure what he wanted off these tapes.” She closed eyes, her mind spinning at all the possibilities. If he could hack into her security system, he wouldn’t need an inside person. He’d clearly done enough damage on his own. But then what was on those surveillance cameras he—or someone else—didn’t want her to see?
“We can start by showing a photo of Garrett to Kate and Sarah,” she proposed. “If he was here, video footage or not, someone had to have seen something.”
“I’m sure I’ve got a photo somewhere.” Jason thumbed through his iPhone for a minute, then held up a photo for her to look at. “This was taken last Christmas at a ski trip up in Colorado, but if you ask me, Garrett looks about the same as he did in college.”
“Good. Let’s just hope it will work.”
Jason pushed the chair away from the desk and stood up. “By the way, Philip has looked at all your current employees, but what about past employees? Are there any that might hold a grudge? Someone you fired, or someone who would know how the shop works and have reason to try and gain access?”
Danielle worked backward mentally through the past few months. “There was…a guy. His name was Marty Devonport. He started working part-time for me this past summer. I ended up firing him after finding out he’d stolen a couple hundred dollars out of the cash drawer.” She hesitated. “He was angry—more at getting caught than losing his job—but he left without causing a scene in the end.”
Her phone dinged as an email came through, momentarily distracting her from the conversation. Her heart pounded as she scrolled through the recent messages.
Jason put down his phone and turned back to her. “Anything?”
“A sale on chicken wings, but nothing from our hacker yet.”
“Give him time,” he said. “The hacker’s probably weighing his response.”
She flipped the phone shut and shoved it into her back pocket. “And if we ended up pushing him too hard?”
“Let’s not take on that problem unless we have to.”
Danielle crossed her arms, still worried that taking things into their own hands hadn’t been a move in the right direction. What were the chances he was simply going to give them what they’d wanted because they asked nicely? “Danielle…?”
She looked up at him, grateful for his nearness as the conflicting battle between trust and fear raged within her. “I’m sorry. I just can’t stop thinking about when this is going to stop. I feel as if I’m playing some game of cat and mouse, but I’m always one step behind no matter what we do. I don’t know how much longer I can keep this up and time is running out. What’s he going to do next?”
“I don’t know.” Jason’s eyes reflected his frustration. “None of us do.”
“Which is the problem. I can’t be proactive in a situation when I don’t know where the next strike is coming from. How do I protect my business and Lauryn when I don’t know the rules of the game?”
She took a deep breath, trying to find a sliver of peace to hold on to. “I hate it when my faith wavers, but I guess I thought God would have already stepped in and stopped this. And now that He hasn’t—not yet, anyway—I’m just not sure where He is or how much strength I’m going to need to get through this.”
They both knew that the storm was far from over. And how somehow—even in facing the possibility of losing everything—she needed something tangible to hold on to.
“I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I do know that He’s right here in the middle of all of this, Danielle. Sometimes He doesn’t calm the storm around us, but He always gives us what we need to get through it.” He locked eyes with her as he gently took her hand in his. “When I lost my mom, I don’t think I’d ever felt so alone. Funny how at that moment, everyone had a verse or some platitude that was supposed to make me feel better, when half the time what was said only made me feel worse.”
Swallowing a lump in her throat, she nodded. She’d been there before. That place of pure rawness where nothing anyone says seems to make a difference. All she knew to do was hold on to her faith and keep trusting until the storm subsided no matter how hard the waves hit. And Jason had become a part of her shelter in this storm.
“Looking back,” he continued, “I can see God’s fingerprints were everywhere. I know it sounds like a formulated answer, and that’s not what I’m going for here, but what I do know is that He is here, and He cares what happens to you in this situation.”
She nodded again, thankful that he didn’t automatically throw out a bunch of pat answers. Because she knew all the right answers. Knew God was right here in the midst of the storm…. And although her faith faltered at times, deep down she knew Jason was right. In the end, she’d seen God’s hand working, and in relying on Him, she’d become a stronger person. It was hard to see those truths in the eye of the storm.
She slid down off the side of the desk, needing something that would both pick up her mood and boost her energy level.
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I don’t know about you, but I never got my cup of coffee this morning.”
*
Jason watched Danielle walk out of the office and decided to stay put in order to give her some space. All her points were valid. It was impossible to be in control of a situation when you had no idea what the next move was going to be. He ran his hand across the back of his neck. There had to be a way to end all of this.
He moved near the large window that overlooked an empty lot, pulled out his phone and punched in Philip’s number. Knickknacks from different places she’d visited around the world sat neatly on shelves beside an assortment of art, travel and design books. On the walls, she’d hung framed photos of Rome, Paris and Morocco.
The photo that caught his eye, though, was one of her with a little girl from Mexico. She stood beside Danielle wearing a tattered shirt, flip-flops and a broad smile. A small sign at the bottom stated that a percentage of the profits from The Bamboo Closet went to help orphans like Maria.
Jason smiled. Danielle might question her beliefs sometimes, but she’d clearly found ways to live out her faith. He turned back to the window. Part of him felt like an intruder. Everywhere he looked were her personal touches, giving him further insight into who she’d become. And the more he saw, the more he felt the strong temptation to move their relationship f
orward.
Jason was about to hang up when Philip finally picked up. “Hey. Just wanted to let you know that there was a breakin at Danielle’s store early this morning.”
“Was anything taken?”
“Her office was gone through, but the only thing she found missing was some petty cash. The strange thing is that her surveillance footage was erased.”
“Why would someone do that?” Philip asked.
“That’s what we are both wondering.”
There was a short pause on the line. “I’ve got a guy who specializes in recovering data. I’ll give him a call and see what he can do.”
“That would be great. Thanks.”
Even if Philip could recover some of the video, it could still end up being another dead end, but at least he was doing something.
“I’ve also got the name of a past employee that might be holding a grudge against Danielle.” Jason passed on the man’s name. “I think it’s worth looking into his record, as well.”
“While you’ve got me on the phone, I was actually getting ready to call you,” Philip said. “I’ve come up with something else interesting. I was able to match a user name on Danielle’s email server to an online dating service we found on Garrett’s computer. Now it could be nothing more than a coincidence…”
Jason shook his head. “I’m not buying anything as coincidence at this point.”
“I’d say you’re right on that count.”
“Have you got a real name?” Jason asked.
“Not yet. Unfortunately, most people use a tag name or a moniker on these dating sites. People are encouraged to guard their anonymity by not using any identifying information online for safety issues, but in situations like this it makes it hard to investigate. And on top of that, she’d just deleted her profile. But I’ll keep working on tracking her down.”