The click-clacking of the keyboard stopped. “You found Jonah’s flash drive?”
“Well, I found a flash drive. I’m not even a hundred percent sure it’s Jonah’s. That’s why I wanted to talk to IT.”
“Is it okay if I put you on hold for a minute?”
The line went silent before I could answer. And the next voice I heard on the phone was not Kristie’s.
Chapter 13
“Grace, Brian Sullivan here.”
I recognized the booming voice of Jonah’s former boss even before he said his name. The last time I’d seen him was at the funeral. I was sure we must’ve spoken that day, but I had no memory of the conversation. “Hi, Brian. How are you?”
“Terrific. Too much time in restaurants though and not enough time on the links. But you gotta keep the clients happy, right? Those tuition bills don’t pay themselves.”
Brian’s job was to keep the clients happy. Jonah’s job had been to reduce their tax burden, or as I called it, legal tax evasion. Jonah insisted he followed all IRS regulations. I knew that was true, but as I used to tell Jonah, just because it’s legal, doesn’t mean it’s right.
“Kristie told me you found Jonah’s flash drive,” Brian continued.
“I told her I found a flash drive. I didn’t realize one was missing.”
“Not missing. We just discovered some irregularities after Jonah passed, that’s all. So we’ve been looking through some of his files.”
I could practically see Brian Sullivan sitting in his corner office, leaning back in his big leather chair with his feet up on his desk, his hands folded across his ample stomach, and his dress shirt straining at the buttons. Jonah often complained about the endless hours he’d had to waste sitting in on calls in Brian’s office when he could’ve been back at his desk getting work done.
“What kind of irregularities?” I asked. As far as I knew, the firm had been happy with Jonah’s work. He’d received a raise and a bonus the month before he died.
“Nothing for you to worry about,” Brian said. “But we do need to see the flash drive. Can you bring it by the office this afternoon? Or if that’s not convenient for you, we can send a messenger to your house to pick it up. Are you still at the same address?”
Alarm bells started going off in my head. Something about this wasn’t right. He was too eager. “Yes, but I’m not home. I’m at work.”
“Do you have the flash drive with you? I can send a messenger to your office right now to pick it up.”
“You don’t need to go to all that trouble. I’ll just bring it by one day next week.”
“No trouble at all, Grace. I insist. What’s your address?”
I didn’t dislike Brian, I just never trusted him. And I trusted him even less now. There was no way I was giving him this flash drive without knowing what was on it. But he wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I told him to send a messenger to my office later in the afternoon. And as soon as we hung up, I drove directly to Best Buy. Luckily, they carried the same brand Jonah used.
I brought my newly purchased flash drive to the office and googled instructions for how to add a password. It looked simple enough, but lots of things with technology that were supposed to be simple never seemed to work that easily for me, so I decided to wait for MJ. I ambushed him as soon as he walked through the front door.
“Do you know how to add a password to a flash drive?”
He slipped his backpack off his shoulders and sat down at the reception desk. “No, but I bet I can figure it out.”
“Can you figure it out quickly?” Brian’s messenger was scheduled to arrive in half an hour.
MJ followed me into my office and plugged the flash drive into my computer.
“What are you putting on here you don’t want anyone to see?” he asked as he moved the mouse around the screen with dizzying speed.
“Nothing.”
“Then why you adding a password?”
He was right. It would look odd if I sent Brian an empty flash drive. Although without my password, he wouldn’t be able to open it, so how would he know? But unlike me, Brian had an IT person and that person might have a way of figuring it out. Even I knew it was possible to check how much memory had been used, even if I didn’t know how to check it myself. I tapped the photo app on my phone and turned the screen toward MJ. “Can you transfer these pictures to the flash drive?”
“Sure. Are they saved in the cloud?”
“How would I know?”
MJ rolled his eyes.
“You know I’m bad at this stuff. Here,” I said and handed him my phone. “You figure it out.”
Half an hour later Brian Sullivan’s messenger left my office with a flash drive containing 212 photos mostly of Amelia, but a handful with me and Jonah too. I’d sealed it in an envelope with a note asking Brian to return it to me with the recovery key if he found anything personal on it. I didn’t actually care if he returned it. I just figured that’s what an innocent person would say.
MJ waited until the messenger had sped away on his motorcycle before he said, “Can I ask why you gave that guy all your photos?”
I pulled Jonah’s flash drive out of the zippered compartment of my purse. “No, but can you break the password on this one?”
MJ let out a laugh. “I can fix your printer when it’s jammed, but I ain’t no hacker.”
Normally, I’d be happy to hear MJ wasn’t breaking the law, but not today. “Do you know any hackers? Maybe a kid at your school?”
“At the Winston Academy? Are you kidding me?”
This time I was the one who rolled my eyes. His classmates were privileged; that didn’t mean they were saints. “Someone at your old school then? I’ll pay. I’m not asking anyone to work for free.”
