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“I’d like to take a closer look.” I reached for the laptop and sat back down.
Daniel watched the entire exchange without a word. Holly squirmed in her chair. Mulaney waited impatiently for an answer.
“He—umm—” She rubbed her hands up and down her thighs. “I saw it in his office on a sticky note.”
“Why were you in his office?” Mulaney asked.
“Getting our new email accounts for SPE set up,” she said quickly. Drew had handled IT, but there had to have been someone else to take care of that besides him. “He put it in his desk. After you had me look through your EXODUS account and Mr. Carter’s”—she pointed at me—“that Mr. Carter, I wondered if his might be different too.”
“And he doesn’t know you have this?” Mulaney asked.
“Not that I’m aware of.”
I hovered the mouse over a dropdown menu. My name, Dad’s name, and Mulaney’s name were listed. I clicked on my own. Once the screen loaded, the figures changed to show we were only a few hundred million down.
“This is what I’ve been looking at.” I shook my finger at the screen, although it was little consolation I hadn’t imploded the company because I was incompetent. I’d never been looking at the real numbers.
“Click mine,” Mulaney said over my shoulder. “And those are mine.”
“I found a log,” Holly said. “You can see how many times he updated your programs. It runs automatically in the background.” She showed me how to navigate there, and sure enough, there were time and date stamps for every update.
I sagged in the chair. “This. He couldn’t have done this.” I closed the laptop unable to bear seeing the evidence any longer.
Everything was in front of me. My brother, the one I trusted as much as anyone. He’d destroyed all our family had worked for. What he’d done was illicit and unscrupulous. But why?Andhe’d tried to pin it on everyone but himself.Especially Mulaney.Shit. How had I not seen this?
Mulaney touched my arm, though she didn’t say a thing. What was there to say? Nothing was as I believed, except her. In this storm, she was the only solid thing.And my brother had tried to destroy that too.
“I’ll leave you to it. My resources are at your disposal.” Daniel collected the papers and put them into a folder, handing it to me. “Family can make us bleed.”
He strode from the study.
“I thought you should know,” Holly said apologetically.
“You were right, even if you shouldn’t have taken his password,” I said. If she hadn’t, we still wouldn’t have the full truth.
“Does Drew have any idea you did this?” Mulaney asked.
Holly fidgeted with the cross around her neck. “I-I don’t think so.”
“Ugh. I can’t even stand the thought of being in the same building as him, let alone related.” Mulaney made a disgusted face.
“He’s here? In this building?” Sheer panic transformed Holly.
“He and the Carters moved in a few days ago,” Mulaney said.
Holly gulped down air. “I have to go.” She bolted even as Heartbreaker called after her.
“What’s all that about?” That was a hell of a reaction.
She frowned. “I don’t know, but I don’t like it.” She dropped into the chair beside me. “At least now we know how he did it. And he’s in deep shit,” Mulaney said, tapping her boot on the floor furiously.
“As it stands, we’re the ones in deep shit,” I corrected. “Right now, it appears you and I did this.”
“So what are you saying? Let him walk?”
“I have to talk to him before we do anything,” I said as I closed the laptop and stood.
Mulaney looked up at me like she’d never seen me before. “What are you going to do? Lay out everything we know? He’s already a thousand steps in front of us, and he obviously doesn’t give one shit about you or your parents.”
