"Canceled my corporation's bonuses for the year?" Charlie took a long swallow of caffeine. Damn. Word did indeed spread like wildfire.
"Be serious, Charles Jergens." A slam as if she'd dropped something heavy on a desktop resounded in his ear. "For God's sake, you've thrown away your future for one piece of ass."
"Don't, Margaret. Not even you can go there with me." He downed more liquid while silence descended on the other end of the phone. So it all came to this. "I'm fully aware what I'm doing."
"I don't think so." Peg must have sunk into a chair from the whoosh of sound. "The two main suspects are living together. What does that say?"
"We're in love and engaged to be married." Charlie glanced around Christine's sunny kitchen and easily pictured making breakfast, lunch, and dinner in this room. Another choice made.
"Are you?"
"I am." And Christine would be moments after she returned, hopefully.
Peg huffed out a breath. "Charles, the board is scheduled to meet this afternoon to discuss your termination. The 'your' is plural. Expect the police soon after."
"You realize someone attacked Christine days ago?" Charlie drummed his fingers on the counter. "She's been hospitalized with serious injuries."
"Random attacks in today's world happen all too often." Peg dismissed it.
"You don't find anything the least coincidental?" Charlie paced then halted in front of the wall of family photos. "Have I ever struck you as a dumb person?"
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Because it would be utter stupidity if I stole thousands of dollars from the corporation then moved in with my partner in crime and openly flaunted it." He paused for a moment to let the simple truth sink in. "I'm smarter and so are you. Make the board smarter too."
"Exactly what are you asking me to do?"
"Stall them. I'll find the real embezzlers for you. After I do, the board will have my resignation." Charlie stroked a photo of Christine standing beside a waterfall. The camera caught her just as she glanced from the falling water to the photographer. Joy radiated in her face with the sun highlighting the reddish tint in her hair, Christine at her most natural, beautiful and so very worth it.
"She means that much? You believe in her enough to throw away a career you've worked years to achieve?" Peg's voice raised an octave before she finished.
"Yeah. She means everything. More than anything else."
Silence. After a few seconds, Peg sighed and cursed. "I'll do what I can."
"Thanks." Charlie disconnected and ran a hand through his hair as he stared at the photo. "Have I made the correct decision, Ku`u Lei, my beloved?"
***
"So." Christine shoved at her hair. Poor Tom had the patience of the biblical Job. "When I send the orders anywhere, LA, Hawaii, et cetera, you guys track the data over the computer through the routers, right?"
"They come through network, not routers." Tom sipped his third, maybe his fourth, cup of coffee.
"Network." Christine felt beyond stupid. "You guys track the data over the network."
Tom nodded. "Yes. Think of it as regular pickups you send UPS or Fed Ex. You take the package. It gets a number and can be tracked wherever it is. They have your signature on the shipping receipt so they know you sent it and exactly where the package is at all times because its number is logged into the computer."
"So this is the electronic way." Christine took a sip of water, having switched after four cups of coffee.
"It's the same principal. We can track exactly where a file or email came from, where it's going, what time, the date, all of it." Tom swept a hand to indicate the notes he'd also drawn to explain the process to her.
"So you can locate the exact computer?" Christine stared at the lines and boxes, seeing the logic and grasping the concept.
"Yes." Tom yawned. It was past seven in the local coffee shop. He'd been there a bit over an hour explaining things to Christine. "The computers in New York will have their own. The ones in Houston have theirs, et cetera. Each corporate location is a separate network address."
"It's like telephone numbers."
Tom laughed. One day, as Maddy would say, he'd be a nine. "The lines are separate, but you could see it the same way. The IP addresses are the area code and numbers of telephones. Your home number, for instance, has the area code, local suffix, and then numbers unique to your phone."
"So if my telephone number is 123-456-7890, the trace shows it's my telephone, no matter what." Christine finally understood all this. "And my work computer is the same way."
"Yes. Each IP address is unique, just like a phone number, to each computer," Tom repeated.
"If I have the little icons at the bottom of my screen of the files I have on my computer and someone pulls them up, they can access my files?"
"If they have click on it before the screen times out and demands a password access again or if they input your computer password, sure." Tom frowned as he pulled out a long sheet. "But no one leaves icons open on an unattended computer."