“A beer for me, whatever kind you've got,” replied Alan.
“No booze for me,” said Matt, “I gave it up years ago. Orange juice, if you've got it.”
Alfred nodded and went off to prepare the drinks.
“Well, Matt, let's not waste time—on to business. What have you found out so far?”
“I'm pretty sure your suspicions are correct, Mr. Sinclair. All the evidence is pointing to Brendan Savage being behind the break-in.”
I nodded grimly. “I knew it. I just knew it. That bastard.”
“Unfortunately, as of yet, I don't have anything conclusive,” Matt added. “Nothing that would hold up in court, anyway. I mean, that's what you're after, right? You wanna hit this guy with everything you've got, of course, but only when you've got a watertight case, only when you can prove that he was behind this. Right now, I'll tell you, what I've got is very strong, but just not enough to be watertight. He's done a great job of covering his tracks. He's got some real pros working for him.”
I sighed. “Do you think you can get a watertight case against him?”
“I might be able to, but it's gonna take a lot more time and a lot more digging.”
“That's fine. You keep working on it. I want to prove that this guy is behind it. I want to face him in court—and win.”
“That’s my plan, Mr. Sinclair. Just give me enough time to gather the evidence I need on him, and you'll win.”
“Good.”
Alan cleared his throat before he piped in. “There's more, though, sir. Matt has di
scovered something else about Mr. Savage and his interest in your company. Or rather, his interest in someone specific in your company.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh really?”
“Yes, sir. One of the things the hacker was able to penetrate was the employee database. However, the strange thing was he only extracted one file from the hundreds of files there,” Alan added.
“And just who’s file did they take?”
“Lilah Maxwell,” Matt commented.
A jolt ripped through my body at the mention of her name.
“What?” I exclaimed. “Lilah?”
Matt nodded. “Yes. When we learned it was her file that had been extracted, I did some digging. It seems Brendan Savage is very, very interested in her. I believe he intends to poach her from your company.”
Flushes of heat surged along my skin. “How do you know this?”
“I've been trailing Savage in the evening hours since you mentioned you suspected him. And it turns out, he's been following Ms. Maxwell. I'm not sure how long this has gone on for. But he definitely knows that she was the driving force behind the sudden success of one of your company's recent campaigns. According to my source, he wants her on his team.”
“Tell me more,” I said, although I wasn't quite sure that I wanted to hear more.
“Savage may have even tapped her phone. He knew that she was meeting her brother Eddie at McGinty's pub on Tuesday evening. He set it up so that he would 'bump into' her. I was there, at the back, watching everything. He really turned on the charm.”
I felt my blood getting hotter and hotter as Matt spoke, but I did my best to retain a facade of cool collectedness.
“Really? And what happened? Between, uh, Lilah and Savage?”
“Oh uh, well, they ended up talking for a long while. He appeared to be laying on the charm, pulling out all the stops. But she seemed resistant to it, hesitant to talk to him too much. Mostly, it appeared he was the one talking and she listened.”
I breathed out a subtle sigh of relief, although the jealousy and anger remained simmering in my core.
“So, what else do you know about this particular situation?” I asked. “I mean, between Lilah and Savage? After that bar meeting, has there been any further contact?”