Chapter 12: Not Again

"We're coming in," I told Pip.

"We?"

I hung up on her.

Leon was already out of bed, pulling on yesterday's shirt.

We walked the four blocks in nine minutes.

I was in last night's blouse with his suit jacket over it, and I didn't care who saw.

Everyone saw.

The whole floor looked up when we came out of the elevator together at seven fifty.

Pip took one look at the jacket and pointed at me.

"We'll talk about that later," she said. "For a very long time."

The man from IT was in the studio with two laptops open.

He showed Leon the log without being asked.

An admin account named SETUP, created five years ago.

Logged in at 4:02 a.m. from an outside address.

Every file in the THURSDAY folder deleted, then the backup copies, then the trash.

"He knew where the backups were," the IT man said. "Whoever it was."

"Whoever it was set the server up," Pip said. "Five years ago. As a favor. He told everybody at the Christmas party."

My drive was empty.

Eight years of drafts and scans, and every version of sixteen cards back to November.

Gone in four minutes.

I sat down at my desk and put my hands flat on it.

I didn't cry. I'd done that the first time, fourteen months ago, in the old man's office.

This time I just felt cold.

At nine, Lyle got off the elevator with a coffee.

He was whistling.

He walked across the floor toward the studio, smiling at people.

Leon stepped out of the old man's office and stood in the middle of the floor.

"Mr. Truax."

Everyone stopped typing.

Lyle stopped walking. "Morning."

"You logged into our server at four this morning with an admin account you created five years ago."

"Did I?"

"You deleted every file in Della Ruddick's drive."

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