Looking at how Harper Worthington ran his business, Sean grew to respect him. Harper was a smart businessman, if a bit more conservative than Sean would have been. He didn’t take risks, didn’t overspend, and had moderate costs. He provided employees with slightly above-industry-average income-and-benefits packages, including retirement plans, but no one person was paid out of line with anyone else in a similar position.
After a short break, Sean ran a custom program that would highlight changes in computer behavior over time—basically, if someone was using their computer in a different way now than they had in the past. The types of programs accessed, time spent online, the Web sites visited, printing or viewing documents, downloads. Changes in computer usage could mean a variety of things from innocuous, such as getting a promotion or change of software, to criminal, such as spending more time with certain files than an employee’s job should warrant.
One thing jumped out at him immediately.
Harper Worthington had almost completely stopped using the computer at his desk over the last four weeks. His login and password hadn’t changed, so Sean cross-referenced the computer IP addresses with the log that Gregor had given him, and determined that Harper—or someone with his password—was using a computer in another office.
Sean tracked Gregor down in his office. “Why wasn’t Harper using his computer?”
Gregor looked at him blankly. “What do you mean?”
“He was using a computer in a vacant office. Or gave someone his password.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Gregor rose and followed Sean down to Harper’s office. Sean had met Debbie Alexander, Harper’s admin, that morning. She was at her desk. “Debbie, Mr. Rogan seems to think that Harper wasn’t using the computer in his office. Was there a problem with it?”
“Is something wrong?” she asked, obviously confused.
“It’s an anomaly,” Sean said.
“Three or four weeks ago he took over the BLM audit—”
“BLM?” Sean asked.
“Bureau of Land Management. There were several boxes of files, and Terry—that’s our accountant who usually handles the BLM—is on maternity leave. Terry told him to use her computer because she had all the relevant documents in her office.” Debbie’s eyebrows scrunched together. “You know, Terry thought something was off with one of the boxes BLM sent. She wanted to come in and help Harper sort through it, but he told her to stay home with the baby.”
“Did Harper usually take over clients when someone went on leave?” Sean asked.
“Sometimes.”
“And use their office?”
Debbie was surprised by the question. “No, not since I’ve been here.”
“I need to see his computer, then Terry’s.”
“All the files, except for physical documentation, are on the intranet,” Debbie said. “They can be accessed from any computer.”
Sean ignored her because he wasn’t looking for the obvious.
He sat at Harper’s desk, ignoring both Debbie and Gregor, who watched him with blatant curiosity.
Why would Harper not use his own computer? Did he think something was wrong with it? That it had been compromised? Why wouldn’t he have said something to Gregor or the tech department?
Sean booted up the computer and used the admin code he’d created that morning so there would be a record of everything he did—important if anything he uncovered led to a civil or criminal trial or employee termination. He had already run system-wide diagnostics, but he ran diagnostics on a deeper level on Harper’s computer. Nothing popped—no viruses, no malware, no piggybacking of data. He checked the logs and found a deleted memo from Terry to Harper. It was a long email listing all the projects she was working on and who she’d assigned them to while she was on leave. At the end she wrote:
BLM has continued to send over documents, past our deadline, and there are a couple of discrepancies that I can’t seem to reconcile. I’ve asked for specific files—the memos are in the master file—but they claim they’ve already sent them. Maybe this pregnancy has made me more tired than I thought. Ian has been working with me on this, and can take it over while I’m gone. However, you might want to work with him because he hasn’t handled something of this magnitude alone. Everything is in my office— I pulled the questionable files from the storage room last week to give them another look through. Call me at home if you have any questions. I’m sure you’ll find the problem. ~Terry
“Debbie,” Sean said, “why didn’t Harper bring the boxes into his office? Or the conference room?”
“I never asked,” Debbie said. “Since my office is between Terry’s and Harper’s, I didn’t think anything of it. But I told the FBI agents who were here that Harper wasn’t quite himself for the last couple of weeks. He was distant, like he had a lot on his mind, but he didn’t say anything to me. Maybe I missed something.”
Sean walked back through Debbie’s office and into Terry’s much smaller office. It was crowded but immaculate. The boxes were neatly lined up and labeled, three high, under the solitary picture window. The desk was clear of work. “Debbie,” Sean said, “I need to talk to Ian.”