Chapter 11
He frowned.
“You didn’t send a revised pricing sheet last night?”
My stomach tightened.
“No.”
He studied my face.
“Someone emailed our procurement consultant claiming your fee structure had changed.”
“From what address?”
“I don’t know. It was forwarded to me.”
“Did it mention 7.4 percent?”
Malcolm’s expression changed.
“How did you know that?”
I felt the entire trap close.
“Because that number is fake.”
He stared at me.
I asked if we could speak privately.
Ten minutes later, Dana was on speakerphone.
Evan joined remotely.
I explained only what we could prove.
Unauthorized access.
A decoy document.
The 7.4 percent figure.
Malcolm listened in silence.
When I finished, he said, “You think someone is trying to interfere with our selection process.”
“I think someone obtained confidential material from my company.”
“Do you know who?”
“Not conclusively.”
That answer mattered.
I wasn’t going to accuse someone before the evidence was ready.
Malcolm postponed the Rowe & Vale presentation.
By noon, Crescent Harbor’s attorneys were involved.
At 12:16, Nathan called me three times.
I ignored all three.
Brynn called twice.
I ignored her too.
Then a message arrived from her.
“What did you do?”
Those four words told me the problem had already reached her.
I did not answer.
At 12:28, she sent another.
“Laurel, call me now.”
I saved it.
Nathan sent one at 12:31.
“We need to talk before this gets out of control.”
I saved that too.
By one o’clock, I understood something I had failed to appreciate all weekend.
My silence wasn’t merely frustrating them.
It was isolating them.
When people don’t know what you know, they start revealing what they fear.
At 2:05, Rowe & Vale’s managing partner called me personally.
Everett Rowe sounded furious.
“Laurel, I need to ask you something directly.”
“Go ahead.”
“Have you or anyone at your company sent confidential pricing information to our firm?”
“No.”
“Have you authorized anyone else to do so?”
“No.”
He exhaled.
“Then we have a serious problem.”
He told me their team had received an anonymous package of competitor intelligence three months earlier.
Not once.
Repeatedly.
The materials were delivered through a private consulting arrangement.
Everett claimed he had never known they were stolen.
His procurement director had been told the information came from legal market research and former-client interviews.
“Who was the consultant?”
Dana was sitting across from me.
She shook her head once.
I understood.
“Everett, I think our attorneys need to handle the next part.”
That answer frightened him more than if I had accused him.
“Is it someone I know?”
“I’m not discussing names.”
He became quiet.
Then he said, “I’m going to investigate internally.”
Forty minutes later, Dana received an email from Rowe & Vale’s counsel.
Attached was a consulting invoice.
The consulting company was called Caldwell Strategic Services LLC.
Brynn.
I read the name three times.
My best friend had been selling information stolen from my company to my competitor.
The affair was no longer the center of the story.
It may never have been.
Payments to Caldwell Strategic Services had begun eight months earlier.
Exactly when the unauthorized accesses started.
The invoices totaled $186,000.
I thought about every dinner Brynn had let me pay for because she joked about being broke.
Every weekend she had sat in my kitchen asking casual questions about clients.
Every sympathetic phone call after we lost an important bid.
She had listened to me blame myself for losing work she may have helped take from me.
May you like
That hurt differently.
Nathan cheating felt like losing a husband.
