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“I don’t think so.” Nathan’s voice was trembling as he said, “It only has eleven views. I only found it because one of my friends, who practically lives on that forum, knew I was working on H-Street’s fashion week and they told me the moment they saw it.”
“We need to get that post taken down immediately.” While furiously typing on her keyboard, Chess ordered, “Start by asking everyone on the team to report the post. Keep an eye out for reposts, draft a cease and desist letter and email it to anyone who reposts. I’ll work on reaching the site’s administrators to make them take the post down faster.” She looked up to find Nathan still hovering over her desk looking as pale as a ghost. “What are you still standing there for? Move. Get to work. Quick, quick, quick.”
For the next few minutes, Chess was too occupied with getting the post down to wonder about its origins. The internet moved fast, but Chess moved faster. It took only five minutes and one furious call for the post to vanish into the internet’s graveyard. In those five minutes, one person had reposted the pictures but Chess’s team quickly dealt with that poster. And soon, it was as if those pictures had never even been on the internet.
“That was so close!” Derrick walked into Chess’s office half an hour later. He hadn’t been around while their team was running around trying to get the pictures taken down, but had miraculously appeared right after the disaster was resolved. “If Nathan hadn’t seen that post so fast, we would’ve been in big trouble.”
“Yes, we would,” Chess curtly agreed even as fury slowly built up within her.
While they were in the eye of the storm, she’d been too occupied with resolving their crisis to muse about the post’s origins. But now that things were calm, she had all the time to muse. And her musing led her to one conclusion.
Tazeem was right.
Derrick was the snake in her grass.
“Who do you think, did it?” Derrick asked as he took a seat opposite her. His eyes were wide and curious as he asked, “Nathan?”
Chess had read somewhere that criminals often visited the scenes of their crimes just to revel in the glee of having done something awful and gotten away with it. At the time, she’d thought it was utter rubbish. Who was dumb enough to revisit their crime scene and risk getting caught? And now, she had proof that some criminals were really that dumb… case in point; Derrick.
He’d come here to confirm that he wasn’t on her list of suspects, and perhaps to revel in her panic.
“It wasn’t Nathan.” Chess kept her tone even despite the fury running rampant within her. “If it was him, he wouldn’t have brought it to my attention so quickly.”
“You’re right.” Derrick sat back in his seat. He sat in thoughtful silence for a beat before asking, “Then who do think it was?”
It was you, asshole. It was you.
Only common sense kept Chess from screaming those words at him and jumping across the table to smack the fake curiosity off his mug. Though the temptation to confront him was strong, she knew it would be a mistake. Even though they had been friends for a long time, she wasn’t the type to just forgive and forget. She had to make him pay for that betrayal, but for that to happen she needed proof, and she had none right now.
If she confronted Derrick prematurely, he would do everything to cover his tracks and probably erase any crumbs of proof that he’d left behind. So for now, the right move was to make him think
“It was probably one of Miller’s people,” she offered even though she was certain that Miller ran a tight ship.
“I knew it.” Derrick’s expression contorted in faked fury. He hit her desk with his fist. “This is why I wanted us to go with Sasha.”
No, you wanted Sasha because she can be easily manipulated into delaying or even wrecking the photo shoot. Chess hid her thoughts with a forced smile, “Fortunately, we solved everything before there was any real damage.”
Derrick left her office a few minutes later for his fake chemo appointment. As soon as he was gone, Chess grabbed her phone.
“You were right,” she said as soon as the call was picked up.
“Right about what?” Tazeem’s deep voice echoed over the line.
“About Derrick.” Chess went on to detail the events of the day and her suspicions about Derrick. When she was done, Tazeem was predictably horrified. But she didn’t give him time to throw her a deserved ‘I told you so’. Instead, she said, “I need your help with something.”
“Anything,” Tazeem easily offered.
The first step of her plan involved finding and tracing the IP address of the poster. For that to happen, she needed help from the forum’s administrators. Unfortunately, she wasn’t powerful enough to force their hand. But Tazeem was.
“Don’t worry I’ll get the address from them even if I have to go all the way to their headquarters myself,” Tazeem promised. “I have some LEO contacts who I think can help with tracing the IP address.”
“That would be awesome.” Her jaw stiffened. “If I can prove that he’s the one who posted those pictures, then dealing with him will be easier.”
23
“W
HAT?” CHESS ASKED THE SAME evening when she felt Tazeem watching her. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
