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He glances around and nods curtly. People are far enough away that they can’t hear us with our low tones. “I need you to get access to Jack’s computer and pull the accounting files he has on there for me. Put them on a flash drive. Once we have physical proof of what she stumbled upon, we can force him out.”
Natalie couldn’t confirm if Jack was embezzling money, but from what she described and with Bill wanting the accounting file, it sure the hell sounds like my initial assumption is right. Jack might have thought he got lucky when someone without a lot of corporate experience found the discrepancy, but he underestimated the meek personality of Natalie.
While I’d love nothing more than to see Jack get fired, I’m not an idiot and I don’t want to go into this blindly. I need Bill to give me more information before I get too deep into some corporate espionage bullshit.
“Why me?” I ask.
Bill adjusts his speed down and checks around us again before lowering his voice even more. “I already had an interest in approaching you since you work so closely with Jack while in the office. Then, Natalie mentioned she was certain we could trust you. The board doesn’t want to involve her more than necessary. She has no clue what she discovered, and the less people who know the better until we have the proof we need. We believe you could be the person we need to get that.”
My pace slows on the treadmill. Everything he’s saying lines up with what I’d been assuming before. Natalie was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and now she’s in over her head, but I wouldn’t be if I agreed to help Bill.
“What exactly would you need from me?” I ask.
He swipes a towel over his face. “We need you to remain in Jack’s good graces and get to his laptop sooner rather than later. We didn’t think he’d be so concerned with me showing up here, but it raised more flags than the board was prepared for. We don’t want Jack disposing of the evidence we need to fire him.”
I’ve been pretending with Jack for a long time. I can placate him a while longer if it means getting him out of my life for the long term.
“I haven’t been the most astute employee this week, but I’ll see what I can do to make amends with him,” I say.
Bill shuts down his machine completely and steps off. “We have all the paperwork in place already. You getting the proof we need to make sure Jack can’t fight us in court over the termination is all we’ll be waiting on to move forward. We’re hoping to avoid any unnecessary scenes.”
I stay on the treadmill and watch Bill exit the gym. With every step he takes, the churning in my gut intensifies. I know getting Jack out of the company is the right thing for everyone, but the longer I jog on the machine, the more I wonder if getting further involved in all this is the right choice.
Mostly, I’m worried I won’t know if these niggling doubts are a warning I should have listened to until it’s too late.
