Love Irresistibly (FBI/US Attorney #4)(22)
Someone who just so happened to owe her a favor.
“Thank you, Keith,” she said. “I can take things from here.”
* * *
A FEW MINUTES later, she knocked on the door to Ian’s office.
“Got a second?” she asked when he looked up from his desk.
Ian waved her inside. “Sure. Come on in.” When Brooke shut the door behind her, he studied her serious expression. “Oh, shit. Don’t tell me we’ve got another murderer.”
Brooke smiled slightly at the joke. At least now they could laugh about that. But this new situation . . . not so much. She took a seat in front of his desk and came right out with it. “Someone broke into the Citibank purchasing card database and altered a few of your entries. Specifically, they changed the descriptions for the expenses you incurred during your last trip to L.A.”
Ian looked at her in confusion. “The descriptions? Why would anyone do that?”
“To be malicious. We don’t know yet if it’s a current or former employee. We have determined, however, that this person took advantage of the fact that Liz was still using the default password.” She slid the spreadsheet Keith had given her across Ian’s desk. “I thought you should see this.”
Ian took the document from her, clearly still not following, and began to skim. After a few moments, his mouth pulled tight. He finished reading, and then set the spreadsheet down. “‘Sperm-burper.’ I haven’t heard that one since high school.”
“We have the IP address of the person who did this, but Keith was only able to narrow the person’s location to Chicago. The FBI is calling this a ‘low-priority’ matter, but I have a contact who might be able to help us out.”
“It’s not the first time I’ve been called a few bad words, Brooke. Do what you can, but I’m not asking you to make a federal case out of this. Yes, pun intended.”
“It’s possibly a current employee who did this, Ian. I’m not comfortable having some person working for Sterling who’s malicious enough to hack into the CEO’s personal account just to write these kinds of things. Regardless of whether the FBI makes an arrest, I want whoever did this out of here.” Brooke paused, following his lead and making her tone lighter. “Besides, this is what you pay me the big bucks for, remember?”
Ian rubbed his jaw. “If I recall correctly, I pay you the big bucks because the last time you were up for a raise you gave me a sixteen-page report with charts and graphs of all the salaries for comparable GC positions.”
Well, yes. Although in her defense, Ian had cheekily asked her to “prove” what she was worth. So she’d done just that—charts and graphs included. “So you’re okay with my moving ahead with this?”
“You have my blessing to track this prick down, if you can, and give him the full Brooke Parker treatment.”
That settled, she got up and headed for the door. Just as she was walking out of the office, Ian spoke.
“One last thing, Brooke.” He held her gaze and nodded in appreciation. “Thank you.”
Nine
AT THE DIRKSEN Federal Building, inside one of the courtrooms, Judge Reinhardt read through the charges in the nine-count indictment the grand jury had returned last week in the case of United States v. Alec Sanderson, et al. To the right of the center podium, in front of the lawyers’ table, were five high-powered criminal defense attorneys with sober expressions. Behind them, the five accused sat stoically as the judge laid out the charges against them. Cameras flashed repeatedly from the gallery, which was filled to capacity with reporters, spectators, and a few family members.
Cade stood to the left of the podium, unfazed by the spectacle. Having been down this road before, he knew exactly the kind of defensive game these crooked politicians played. They hired the city’s most expensive lawyers and PR firms, who would cry foul and righteously protest their client’s innocence—Justice will prevail! We will have our day in court!—and then they would wake up one morning, have a nice dose of reality for breakfast, and start trying to flip on each other in exchange for a reduced sentence.
Along with Senator Sanderson, Cade had filed corruption charges against Charles Torino, the hospital CEO who’d offered Sanderson a bribe at Sogna; as well as a real estate developer who’d paid Sanderson multiple bribes in exchange for his assistance in moving forward several major real estate projects; a lobbyist who had paid off Sanderson in exchange for allocating state funds to certain projects; and the financial consultant who’d set up the shell company though which Sanderson’s bribes were funneled. Not unexpectedly, the indictment of the senator and four successful businessmen had been the top story in the Chicago media for the last week, and Cade’s office had been flooded with calls from the press. Everyone wanted to know what kind of evidence the U.S. Attorney’s Office had up its sleeves.
And in about two minutes, they were going to find out.
“How do the defendants plead?” the judge asked when she’d finished reading the charges.
One by one, the defense attorneys stepped up to the podium and responded “not guilty” on behalf of their clients. Sanderson’s lawyer then immediately asked the judge for extra time to review the discovery materials before a trial date was set.
“We have no objection, Your Honor,” Cade said. “Particularly in light of the fact that the U.S. Attorney’s Office has over fifty-five thousand documents and roughly one thousand recorded phone conversations that establish our case.”