Cruz, probably aware of the interchange, chose to ignore them both. Easy for him. He had a steady sex life. Love life. Whatever. Cruz was happy, and he deserved to be.
“Our new friend, Joseph Corbin Junior, runs a tight ship over at Corbin Systems as the Chief Information Officer.” Cruz pulled up a couple more windows on his laptop’s screen.
Rojas didn’t lean in to look. Unless there was a picture of the guy, Rojas would do better hearing the briefing as opposed to trying to read it on the limited real estate of the laptop screen.
“Looks like his business is definitely in information systems and content management,” Cruz continued. “There’s a wide range of publicly disclosed projects, but the company also holds a fair number of government and military contracts.”
And obviously there were a few pet projects.
“Elisa did mention security clearances, didn’t she?” Rojas briefly pondered, getting himself a notepad, then discarded the idea. He’d lose the notes anyway. Better for Cruz to keep it all organized and Rojas could review the information later on his own computer. His strengths were in active situations, and he’d had to review briefing data in the past. He could do it again.
Cruz only nodded before pulling up the next set of information. “Junior himself graduated Ivy League, high honors. Recommendations on his online professional profile all describe him as extremely detail-oriented and a strong leader.”
Amazing what those professional networking sites could tell you about a person nowadays.
“His work history is all with Corbin Systems. Started at entry level and worked his way up in Daddy’s company. Learned the business from the basement up to the corner office.” Cruz straightened for a minute and rolled his shoulders before leaning in to the laptop again. “Good old Dad is still the CEO, but Junior runs the company in all but name, looks like.”
“So we’ve got a man used to being the leader, no questions asked.” Forte tapped the top of his beer bottle to his chin as he thought through the possible conclusions. “Probably a control freak, since most stalkers are, and Elisa wouldn’t have bailed if it hadn’t gotten bad.”
Cruz tapped another couple of keys. “She did try to make a couple of police reports. Just like she said, they got buried. Counseling was recommended, but all of those counselors were affiliated with Corbin Systems’ human resources division. Saves on insurance fees, apparently.”
“He kept her fairly well corralled.” Forte sounded impressed. “Family thinks he’s the best thing since sliced bread and dismisses her as having anxiety issues. She herself has got some heavy-duty confidence problems now, too.”
“I think she’ll bounce back given the chance,” Rojas tossed out.
“I don’t doubt it.” Forte nodded. “She’s like a whirlwind in the front reception area. All of our clients like her, and she’s reduced our paperwork to a fraction of what it was. The only complaint she voiced to me was a need for matching pens. Good pens, with blue or black ink.”
There was a beat of silence.
“So our Elisa is somewhat detail-oriented herself,” Cruz ventured. “And apparently, she started at Corbin Systems at entry level, too. By that time, though, Junior was a VP. He had some heavy-duty influence already, aside from being the CEO’s kid.”
“Enough to get HR to look in the other direction.” Forte was enjoying piecing the story together. A lot of it was conjecture, but all three of them were used to piecing together fragments of information to visualize an overall image.
Chances were, they were right.
“So Elisa finally decides to leave.” Rojas took up the story at the key turning point.
“And she’s successful,” Forte added.
Impressive on its own.
“But Junior keeps finding her.” Cruz brought up a few less publicly available files, from the color of the headers on the windows.
Rojas recognized the color system because Cruz tended to use the same categorization they used back when they’d all been active duty and reading their way through briefing reports.
“Some of it is his company resources.” Cruz began scrolling in the file. “But some of this…I’m not seeing exactly how he found her jump out at me. Elisa is a quick learner, and she doesn’t seem to make the same mistake twice.”
“If she did, he’d have her back by now.” It made Rojas angry to point it out.
“I can see him locating her by IP, even tracing her phone since he’s got some influence with the police in his area.” Cruz sat up and his eyebrows drew together in a scowl. “But he’s found her several times, and he likes to play cat and mouse. He’s gotten her number even when she hasn’t checked her e-mails, based on what I can find in her back trail.”