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Carter shoots us both an apologetic look and then walks toward his office.
I lead Jeff back to the door. “Sorry about that. If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to call.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure it hasn’t been easy to be off work for this long.”
“Not in the slightest. Thank you very much for helping us out.”
“I’ll let you know when I’ve got an update.” Jeff walks out to his car with a wave. I shut the door behind him and plop down on the couch. I set a timer for four hours just to make sure Carter doesn’t overdo it. It’s probably overkill, but whatever that phone call was about sounded serious. I don’t want him to backslide in his recovery because he worked for too long.
CHAPTER 36
Carter
“Sorry about that. Okay, walk me through what happened again.” I sit down at my computer and turn on my monitors.
“I got the customization on my tracking program done earlier than I planned, so I uploaded it yesterday instead of today. Since everyone knew it was being added, I didn’t think I needed to update everyone about it.”
Once I’m logged in, I pull up the tracking program data that William sent in an email.
“And last night, I got a notification that the code in RetLab had been updated.”
“Can I be honest and tell you I’m so tired of dealing with this stupid program?”
William snorts. “I feel ya. But here’s the tricky part. Both Paul’s and Inez’s names were marked as having made changes.”
“Wait. What? Both of them updated the program?” Scrolling through the tracking sheet, I find where Paul has made updates to the scoring criteria, and Inez has marked the previously entered data as correct.
“It seems so.”
“This doesn’t make sense, though. For starters, there’s still a block on entering data into the program. Changing the coding on the program is pointless right now. Secondly, why would Inez bring up the issues with RetLab if she’s been one of the people making the changes?”
“I think my tracking program has something to do with the updated code, despite the block. I’d imagine they knew that once the tracker was implemented, they’d never be able to get away with changing it without us finding out. As for Inez’s and Paul’s involvement… I have no explanation. But there’s no way we can sit on this. They’re deliberately changing the code to score the data inaccurately.”
“No, I agree. We have to do something, but I have a feeling that straight up confronting them is going to backfire.”
“How so? We’ve got the proof of what they did.”
“Sure, but we both know how easy it easy for someone to steal a person’s credentials. It wouldn’t be too far-fetched for them to say they were hacked or something.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”
“We have to make it so they incriminate themselves. Here’s what I’m thinking.” I lay out my plan to William, hoping he thinks it will work. We need to get to the bottom of whatever is going on here, and I can’t do it on my own.
William is receptive to my idea, and we work together to put everything into motion. Inez has already scheduled a meeting with Tom for tomorrow to talk about Retlab, so I invite Paul to join the meeting, as well. In the description, I tell him that we want his opinion on the issues we’ve been having with the program. I’m sure it will seem odd, but I doubt he’ll question it.
If I could get away with inviting William to attend, as well, I’d do it. Having an additional person who knows what’s going on would help ease my nerves, but he only had a peripheral role in the issues with RetLab. His being at the meeting would be odd.
I’ll have to join via video conference. It’s not ideal, but going all the way into Greensboro while I’m still healing isn’t a good idea.
“Okay, you have everything you need?” William asks.
“I think so. Thanks for your work on this, Will. It’s appreciated.”
“I hate that it’s come down to this. I hope we get the answers we need to end this for good.”
We hang up the phone, and I make my way back to the living room, where Sam is sitting on the couch. He’s got another book in his hands, and I haven’t caught the name of this one. He reads them incredibly fast.
He glances up, catching me staring at him. “Hey, everything okay?”
