Chapter fifteen

Claire's heart stopped beating for what felt like a full minute and she stared at Eunice with wide eyes.

Eunice looked equally stunned and for a moment neither of them moved, frozen in disbelief.

Then they both shot to their feet at the same time and practically ran to the living room, nearly tripping over each other in their haste.

Adrian was sitting on the couch with the laptop balanced on his knees and the biggest, proudest smile she'd ever seen lighting up his entire face.

"Look, Mama!" He turned the screen toward them and pointed at something buried in the system files with his small finger. "There's something here that shouldn't be and it's hidden really, really well but I found it anyway."

Claire dropped to her knees in front of him so fast it hurt and stared at the screen with her heart pounding in her ears.

Buried deep in her system files, hidden behind layers of code and nested folders that most people would never think to check, was software she'd never installed and had never even seen before. The code was sophisticated and deliberately concealed, designed specifically to mirror her screen to another device without leaving obvious traces.

Screen sharing software.

This was how Theresa had done it, how she'd stolen both presentations and made it look like her own work.

"Oh my God." Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold the laptop steady. "Adrian, how did you find this? Where did you even know to look?"

"I looked in all the hidden folders that most people don't check because they don't know they exist." He explained with the patience of someone teaching something very simple. "And I wrote a little search program to find anything that was accessing your screen or your files without your permission. This one was really sneaky and tried to hide itself but it wasn't sneaky enough to fool my program."

He'd written a search program at five years old to find malicious software that professional IT technicians had missed.

Eunice leaned over Claire's shoulder and stared at the screen with her mouth hanging open. "I knew it. I knew that bitch was cheating and now we have proof."

"Language." Claire said automatically but her mind was already racing ahead, spinning through possibilities and implications.

This was proof, real and concrete and impossible to deny. This was evidence that Theresa had been stealing from her all along, that she'd been telling the truth about everything.

Claire looked at her son and felt love crash through her chest so powerfully it almost knocked her backward.

She pulled him into the fiercest hug she'd ever given and held him like he was the most precious thing in the world, which he was. "You've helped me more than you could possibly know. You're so incredibly, amazingly smart and I'm so proud of you."

He hugged her back with his thin arms wrapped tight around her neck. "I'm glad that you're happy now ."

"Incredibly happy my love" She kissed the top of his head and breathed in his scent. "You absolutely did make me happy and you were right."

Eunice was still staring at the screen with something between awe and vindication written across her face. "So what are you going to do with this now that you have it?"

Claire pulled back from Adrian just enough to look at the evidence still displayed on her laptop screen.

The question hung in the air, “What could she actually do with it now?”

She couldn't go back to TechCor and present this to Brian and the executives, not after the scene she'd made today. They'd never believe her and would probably just accuse her of planting the software herself out of spite and desperation. She'd burned that bridge so thoroughly there was no going back across it.

A slow smile spread across her face as an idea began to form in her mind, sharp and clear and absolutely perfect.

"I'm going to show them exactly who they messed with.”