Chapter 5
A few days later, there was still no word from Guince. Then, Moses' call came through, like a lifeline.
"Mitch, I've got a major lead!"
Moses' voice was trembling with barely contained excitement, and there was even a trace of disbelief.
My heart jumped to my throat in an instant.
"Spill it!" I urged.
"After repeatedly tracing and stripping away all the disguises, I finally tracked down the sending IP address of that email.
"There was a single, extremely brief login record, and the source actually pointed right to your company's internal network," he said.
My company's internal network?
My mind buzzed, as if I'd been smashed over the head with a hammer.
A cold chill shot up from the soles of my feet all the way to the top of my head.
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely. Even though the sender used multiple relays and dynamic IP addresses, there was one time, probably due to a slip-up or network glitch, when a real connection point was briefly exposed. And it traced back to your company."
Moses sounded absolutely certain.
After hanging up, I stood frozen in the middle of my study, my body ice-cold.
Someone from the company.
That scoundrel was someone I knew!
The CBD, the company's IP address, and Roxy's half-day "sick leave".
It was as if an invisible hand was linking everything together, pointing straight at a chilling possibility.
All at once, I remembered every odd thing Roxy had done lately.
She never let go of her phone, and there were all those new clothes I'd never seen before.
And then there was that black lace nightgown.
If the sender was from the company, that meant he had the chance to get close to Roxy.
I forced myself to calm down and started going over everyone at the company in my mind, one by one.
Who could possibly hate me this much?
Who would have both the motive and the skills to pull this off?
Oh right, the annual gala!
For the past few years, Roxy had been coming along as my guest.
My mind flashed back to a few months ago.
Roxy was there, wearing that light blue dress I'd picked out for her. She looked so soft and graceful, absolutely stunning.
I remembered she seemed to have gotten a little tipsy that night.
Who kept coming over to toast her?
One vague face after another flashed through my mind.
That sly old-timer from marketing?
No way. He'd never have the balls for something like this.
Could it be one of the guys from the technology department?
Impossible. We all got along just fine.
Wait!
Out of nowhere, a figure leapt out from the depths of my memory, sharp as day.
It was Howard, Ernest's spoiled son.
At the annual meeting, he was holding his drink, smirking in that cocky way, and made a beeline for Roxy to strike up a conversation.
Back then, I just thought he was a young guy being sociable, so I didn't pay it much mind.
But now, thinking back, the way he looked at Roxy, there was an open desire in his eyes, mixed with a kind of playful look.
And Roxy, her cheeks flushed from the alcohol, was laughing and chatting with him.
I remember feeling a bit uncomfortable at the time, but I got distracted by something else and let it go.
Could it be him?
He snatched my job, and now he was trying to humiliate me in this way too?
Once this thought popped up, it was like a wild weed that could no longer be contained.
I immediately turned on my computer and started looking up Howard's public information.
The guy had quite a few social media accounts, all of them unusually high-profile.
His latest post was a photo from a yacht party, surrounded by a bunch of scantily-clad influencers.
The caption read: [When life goes well, live it to the fullest! Let's party hard!]
[When life's good, you gotta party hard—don't waste a single drop!]
In the photo, he was rocking sunglasses and flashing a wide, smug grin, looking every bit like a cocky punk who just got lucky.
I clicked into his photo album, and it was packed with nothing but shameless flexing and shows of wealth.
Luxury cars, designer watches, high-end brands, and all kinds of hedonistic parties—he was always surrounded by booze and beautiful women.
He was a textbook privileged heir, riding on Ernest's power and doing whatever he pleased.
With a guy like that, nothing he did would surprise me anymore.
If Howard really sent that email, then Roxy...
No, I still couldn't be sure that Roxy was the woman in the photo.
That photo was taken from a very tricky angle. Although it seemed like it, I couldn't be one hundred percent sure.
But Howard was definitely my number one suspect.
He had the motive, the opportunity, and that nasty streak that made him totally capable of something like this.
I even started to wonder if stealing my job was never just about climbing the ladder for him.
Maybe, from the very beginning, he had his eyes on Roxy.
And me? I was an obstacle in his scheme, a pathetic loser he could trample on and toy with whenever he felt like it.
Great, Howard Yates!
I couldn't wait to see what else he had up his sleeve.
From that moment on, I shifted the entire focus of my investigation onto this "privileged heir" who had suddenly surfaced out of nowhere.