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It had taken a long paper trail and filing charges to get Steven to leave her family alone. Even then, he kept track of her through Army channels, and would send her messages. Another formal complaint, which effectively ended his career, was the only thing that stopped his harassment. He simply didn’t know where to find her.
And so, she’d stopped leaving hints to her personal life in the workplace. Unless she made the information known, no one really knew much about her outside of work. Unless they saw her out with someone like Antony. At a restaurant.
She unlocked her drawer and pulled out a fresh Field Notes to document the incidents with Smith, including finding her desk in slight disarray. No one else had reason to mess with anything, and he was the only person who had issue with her. She tucked the notebook into her chest pocket and determined that it was something she’d not leave at work for any reason and settled back to her work.
Motherfucker. Her computer password was locked. So that’s what they were doing, wasting her time. IT set the systems up to where a password reset would be required after three failed attempts, so now she had to go to the system administrators. Again. Same thing happened a couple weeks ago. She didn’t have proof, but strongly suspected Smith.
She sighed and walked to Stina’s cube. “Got a sec?”
Stina hit the lock screen on her computer. “Of course. What’s up?”
Lesley waited until they got down the hallway. “Locked out of my account again. You see anything?”
“I heard the floorboard rattle, but figured it was regular traffic. Didn’t hear anything coming from your desk, so whoever did it was quiet.”
“This shit’s getting old.”
“Smith?”
“Of course.”
“But why? What’s the point?”
“To be a pain in my ass. He’s been passively shitty since I got on him.” They stopped at the door to the IT section. “I don’t know how to handle this one. I have no proof, and no way to get it.” She wanted to tell Stina about her meeting with Oli, but even if she could, the hallway wasn’t the place.
“I’ll keep an ear out,” Stina said. “See if the E-4 mafia rumor mill churns anything up.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The team cleared out of work a little later than usual after making a little headway in the piles of paperwork. The police chief had been quite interested in hearing about the gaps in their files and had got involved in scrounging up any corroborating information that they had on their end. It was officially a joint investigation.
Antony left a message for Lesley. She was having a long overdue dinner with her brother and his wife. After that, they’d made plans to meet at the Warehouse. It would be her first time officially meeting Charlie, and while he wasn’t worried about them getting along, it was still important to him. He tapped out a message to tell her they were probably going to be a few minutes late, and the group sat down at the Hog Shack, a local BBQ place that had quickly become their favorite.
“I will be so happy when we get that info from the locals,” Simon said.
“Yeah. I really think that they’ll be able to fill in the gaps that we can’t,” Charlie said, taking a swig of her tea.
“Gaps? The holes in that case are the size of the Grand Canyon,” Antony complained. “Have we heard anything back from Bower?”
“Nope. Not a peep,” Simon answered. “Depends on how much he had to dig, but I bet we won’t hear from him until next week.”
“I dunno,” Antony said. “I got a feeling we won’t be hearing from him at all.”
“Why’s that?” asked Simon.
“Dunno. Gut. He emailed. Didn’t call. That creates distance, less personal. He’s controlling the narrative.”
“Exactly what any of us would do if we were cornered,” Charlie said. “Are you surprised?”
“No. Just frustrated,” Antony admitted. “But none of us would have any reason to evade, unless there were bones to be dug up.”
“Well, nothing to be done about it this weekend, so let’s just save it until Monday,” Simon said, effectively tabling the conversation.
“Well, I’m looking forward to finally meeting Lesley,” Charlie said.
Audrey grinned. “You’ll like her. Besides, she can handle this guy,” she said, jerking her thumb toward Antony. “She can’t be bad.”
Antony opened his mouth to reply but stopped and looked closer at Audrey. Nothing on her face said she was being sarcastic or cruel. He ruefully shook his head and smiled. “You’re right. Dealing with me has to count for something,” he admitted.
