Whatever Happened to Nancy Drew?

Is she hiding behind the bookcase
Or underneath the flower vase
Or somewhere on a high-speed chase
Did she disappear without a trace
Maybe she's just searching for a clue?
Whatever happened to Nancy Drew?

 

“You did what?!”

“I hired a security analyst to investigate the problem with our distributor sales,” Maggie King enunciated each word distinctly, as if she were talking to a small child. She rolled her eyes at the expression on her ex-husband’s face.

“Don’t look at me like that, Richard,” she admonished. “We both know I have the right to bring in any kind of auditor that I like. It just so happens that I’ve chosen to have a security audit conducted. Whether you want to admit it or not, something is wrong with our orders.”

“Yes, I understand that’s what you think, Mag, but, as I’ve tried to explain, it’s just a seasonal downturn in business. These things are cyclical. It happens sometimes. There was no need for you to go and bring some… some… Nancy Drew wannabe into the business to investigate things.”

Sean Barnes glanced at his boss.

Trixie stood silently to one side, not flinching or otherwise acknowledging the derision in Richard Hoffman’s tone.

“That’s enough, Richard!” Maggie stood up. “We’ll discuss this later, but in the meantime, the business is paying Ms. Belden by the hour, so we need to get her started. Where can she set up?”

“She can use the O’Leary conference room,” Richard replied icily. “I assume they have their own equipment.”

“Yes, they do,” Maggie replied. She glanced at Trixie. “Do you need anything else, Beatrix?”

“Yes,” Trixie answered. “We’ll need copies of all your financial reports for the last three years, as well as intranet access, logins to all systems, and system administrator privileges to your distributor ordering system.”

Richard’s eyes narrowed. “I assume you’ve signed the proper agreements for keeping information confidential?”

“Of course they have!” Maggie snapped. “Seriously, Richard. There’s no sense in you being such a boor about this. If it’s really inconveniencing you that much, just call up that little writer you’ve been besotted with of late and take her to lunch.”

“Ms. Eaton is out of town,” Richard replied evenly. “How about you give Ned and Nancy the grand tour of Fireking and then I’ll take you to lunch. There are a few things we need to discuss. Privately.”

Trixie bent to pick up the designer laptop bag that was propped against her chair. She exchanged a look with Sean and both pairs of eyes twinkled. It was a first for her to be likened to the famous fictional sleuth and while she had always preferred Lucy Radcliffe to Nancy Drew, she secretly enjoyed the comparison.

Within the hour, Trixie and Sean were set up and connected to the Fireking network. Maggie had given them a tour of the business, including introductions to the Chief Operating Officer, Larry Huntington. Trixie could tell by his facial expressions that the white-headed COO was curious; however, he refrained from asking questions of the pair. She barely refrained from smirking as she imagined the meeting that would take place later between the two executives.

Once Trixie and Sean were alone in the conference room, they got down to business. Maggie promised to check back in after lunch, but Trixie hoped to prove her theory was correct before that time. She had a solid hunch of what was happening, based on the paper that Maggie had provided at their first meeting.

“Didn’t it bother you when he called you Nancy?” Sean asked her.

Trixie looked up, blinking in surprise. “No, of course not,” she answered. “His ex-wife took him by surprise and he was angry with her. It wasn’t about me at all.”

“You don’t think he lacks confidence in you?” Sean flushed Trixie tilted her head to one side and studied him. “I mean, I think he believes your publicity in the gossip rags.”

Trixie grinned. “Maybe, but it won’t matter.” Turning her attention to the computer, she rapidly punched the keys of her laptop at a staccato pace.

“Why?” he probed. “I mean… it just seems…” his voice trailed off. “I didn’t like being referred to as your faithful sidekick.”

Trixie snorted. “Forget about it, Barnes. Right now, we both know you’re my partner. If we do our jobs right, it doesn’t matter what Hoffman thinks of either of us. Besides, by the time Hoffman and Maggie return from lunch, we should have some proof his distributor’s web portal is being hacked.” She punched a few more keys and studied the display. Leaning back she allowed a satisfied smile to spread across her face. “Oh yeah, we’ll definitely have the proof. Take a look at this.”

Trixie angled her computer so Sean could easily read the screen. He leaned closer and read down the lines of code displayed. “A redirect, simple, but effective.” He whistled in appreciation. “You were right about that. What do we do now?”

“Follow it, Barnes. You’re the whiz kid in the Bureau with network trails. How long will it take you?”

“For you, Belden…” He shot her a grin. “I’ll figure it out faster than Nancy Drew!”

“Yeah,” Trixie snorted. “You just do that! And while you’re at it, figure it out before the King of Fireking returns from lunch!”

 

 

“She did what!?”

“Mitsy turned in her resignation,” Simon Farnsworth repeated. “She gave me a thirty-day notice.”

It was the first time that Simon had seen his boss speechless. He waited patiently, watching as William Thornhill paced back and forth across his spacious Manhattan office.

“What do you want me to do?” he finally asked, breaking the silence.

William shook his head in disbelief. “What do you think brought this on? Firing that Belden woman or firing Strickland?”

“Neither,” Simon admitted. “Most likely it was my telling her she wouldn’t be considered to replace Strickland as CFO of our division.”

“You told her that? When?”

“A couple of days ago.” Simon paused as he studied his boss. “She asked me point blank if I’d interview her, Bill. She didn’t give me much of a choice but to tell her the truth. And even though you may disagree, it’s no different than I would have treated any employee with her record.”

William held up his hand in a gesture of peace. “I understand, Simon. All I ever wanted was for you to treat her like anyone else.”

“It hasn’t been easy,” Simon muttered.

“Yeah, well thanks. I know it was a lot to ask.” Thornhill resumed his pacing, and Simon once again waited before breaking the silence.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he finally reminded his boss. “What do you want me to do?”

William turned and looked at his colleague. He rubbed his brow for a moment as if he had a headache. Finally, he sighed deeply and replied. “Do what you would do with anyone else in the same position.” He shrugged. “Would you counter to keep her if she wasn’t my daughter?”

Simon gave a strangled laugh. “Yeah, right, boss. Don’t ask me that! You’re as bad as my wife.” He shook his head as if remembering some other incident. Glancing up he caught his boss’s eye and repeated his question. “What do you want me to do? We both know I can’t win here. I’ve already lost Strickland, you pulled Al three months ago to work on your latest merger consideration, now Mitsy’s resigned. My operations group is in the toilet.”

William shoved his hands in his pockets and stared. “You’re right. It’s not fair to make you decide how to handle this.” Pausing as if he were considering his options, the seconds ticked off quietly before he gave a decisive nod.

“Let her go.”

“Let her go?” Simon echoed in disbelief.

“We can pull Strickland back from Europe for you to keep things going. Al’s almost finished with his due diligence. He should be back at the helm ready to address the security issues for you in less than a month.”

“Are you serious, Bill?”

William nodded slowly. “Yes, I’m serious. The more I think about it, the more certain I become. The answer is clear. It’s time my baby girl left the nest.”

 

 

“She said what?”

“You heard me, Maggie. The girl is a flake,” Richard declared. “I know you abhor gossip and the like, but she’s been talked about on Page Six for weeks. Tiffany seemed to think that she was a bit of a joke. You can’t expect me to take her seriously.”

“You don’t seriously expect me to give any credence to anything that woman has to say about Beatrix!” Maggie’s eyes flashed as she leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table with both hands. “Why does it bother you that there’s gossip about her love life, Richard? It’s never bothered you when the gossip rags are discussing your love life. In fact, as I recall you seemed to get a kick out of it.”

“That’s different!”

Maggie’s steely gaze held Richard’s. The look spoke volumes.

Richard finally dropped his eyes and looked down at his plate of roasted pork loin. “Okay, okay…” he muttered. “It’s not different.” Sighing, he put down his fork and leaned forward, making eye contact with his ex-wife again. “If it’s what you want, then I’m fine with it. I still say it’s a seasonal fluctuation in the business.”

Maggie’s anger subsided slightly and she felt as if she could breathe again. “It’s not. But then, you never would believe me about the distributor channel.”

“Oh come on, Maggie,” Richard huffed. “Let’s not start that up again. You know I have the utmost confidence in your business abilities. It was your choice to take a backseat after Olivia was born.”

Maggie looked away. The memory of the final straw between them was still painful to her, and while she didn’t want to admit it, Richard was the only man she would ever really love. “You may have confidence in my business acumen, Richard. It was just confidence in my ability to juggle motherhood and work and you that you lacked.”

Richard stared in silence. “That’s not true. The divorce was your decision, Maggie, not mine. If you had just believed me when I told you there was nothing going on –”

“Please.” Her eyes implored him. “Richard, I can’t--” Her voice broke. She picked up her water goblet and sipped. Placing the crystal glass carefully back down on the linen-covered table, she cleared her throat and took a deep breath. “There’s no point in rehashing things again, Richard. Let’s just agree to move on, okay?”

“It’s not okay,” he argued. “It’s never going to be okay. Maggie, I have never lied to you. Never. And I didn’t lie to you that night. I should have tried harder to convince you of that. What you walked in on wasn’t what you thought.”

“You were never able to explain why you were with her,” Maggie reminded him. “Why would you have a business discussion with a colleague that wasn’t wearing any clothes?”

Richard pinched the bridge of his nose, as if trying to ward off the beginning of a migraine. “It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters now is getting this security audit completed so I can focus on getting our proposal out to the government.”

Maggie nodded, while slowly twirling pasta onto her fork. She had lost her appetite during the heated discussion over their divorce. “Just make sure you have someone available you can assign to work the resolution of this problem, Richard. Whether you want to admit it or not, there is going to be a problem.” She put the fork down and picked up her napkin, surreptitiously dabbing at her eyes. Clearing her throat, she waited for him to look her in the eye. “Beatrix is going to find a security problem. And when she does, not only are you going to have to eat your words, I’m going to take an active role in the business again.”

 

 

“You’re what?”

Andie Newman tightened her grip on the unique and fountain pen in her hand.

“I’ve decided it’s time for me to leave the firm,” Charlie repeated. “The offer of a partnership made me realize that it’s time for me to pursue what I want in my career.”

“You’re going into the family business?” She leaned back in her chair, still gripping her expensive pen.

“No,” he replied, giving a shake of his head. “I’m starting my own business. A law firm – Prescott and Associates.”

“I see.” Andie leaned back in her chair and studied Charlie. He met her gaze and didn’t look away as she slowly manipulated the pen between her fingers. He recognized the “tell” and knew she was debating walking him out the door.

“This complicates matters,” she finally admitted to him.

“How?”

“If it were any other lawyer here, telling me they were leaving in the middle of landing our biggest client, I’d walk them out the door right now.”

Charlie nodded. “It wouldn’t surprise me. For what it’s worth, I’m not interested in the Graham account. It’s too big for a one-man firm.”

“But…”

The silence hung between them as Charlie, the experienced litigator, patiently waited. He knew the first person to speak would be the loser.

The tension deepened and finally, Andie sighed and tossed the expensive pen onto her leather-topped desk. “I need you to close the Graham account, and to reassure John Graham he’s going to be in good hands. If you’ll agree to get the account finalized for us, you can have whatever time you need to get the rest of your files transitioned and things wrapped up. You’re too important to our current workload and I don’t want that between us as you start your own firm.”

Charlie was pleased. He had expected Andie to realize there was little he could do to hurt the firm in the next few weeks. If he had wanted to steal clients, he would have taken copies of the files before meeting with the managing partner

“The other partners may give me some grief about this. But they’ll soon realize we need you to close that account.” She stood. “Can I trust you to wrap things up as quickly as possible?”

“Absolutely!” he answered standing as well. He realized what she was doing. She didn’t want to have to go up against him later. She wanted the two firms, his and hers, to be allies of sorts. He extended his hand. “Andie, you know I’m not going to farm your business for clients.”

Andie grasped his hand between both of hers. “Yes, I do. Despite what others may think, that’s not your style. I hope that you’ll give me a call when your office is set up and we’ll do lunch. There may be clients with cases that don’t fit our model that we can send your way. I know you want litigation work. That is, unless I’m very much mistaken.” She gave him a faint smile.

“You’re on the money, as always.” Her generosity made him wonder fleetingly if he should have accepted her offer. “I appreciate the time, Andie. I’ll do my best to close the Graham account by the end of next week.”

“I know you will, Charlie. And good luck. I hope we never have to go up against you.”

 

 

“Guess what?”

Trixie looked up from the sales reports she had been studying. “What?”

Sean Barnes grinned across the conference table at his boss. “I found it.”

“Get out!” Trixie jumped up, unable to contain her excitement at his news. She darted around the conference table and eagerly peered at his computer screen. “How on earth did you find it so fast?”

“Beckhart’s software, that’s the best new tool I’ve seen in quite a while. The Bureau’s crazy if they don’t go negotiate a deal with Beckhart for an enterprise license of his software.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I already turned in the recommendation to Walker.” Trixie studied the screen. “Wow! Look at that trail. How many different anonymous proxy servers did they go through?”

“As least four,” Barnes replied. “We’re familiar with Hide-me and Securecom. Those two companies try for legitimate business applications. The rest are offshore locations. TechNet4U is a known haven for illegal activity.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen them as well.” Trixie frowned. “Where’s the originating IP address? Were you able to locate it?”

Sean leaned forward and punched a key. “It’s right there. I can tell it’s a U.S. address, but I didn’t do the search yet. Can you give me a minute?”

Trixie shifted from one foot to the other. “Hurry up, Barnes. I want this much done before Hoffman gets here.” Her eyes narrowed and she leaned forward. “Wait just a second, I know that address. Let me think a minute.”

She closed her eyes recalling the cases she had worked. In her mind, she processed through the files of the various companies she had worked since February. Not Eastway… It wasn’t Jupiter Plains…

“Oh, no!” she groaned. “It can’t be.”

“Can’t be who?” Sean asked, punching the wrong key in his hurry to complete the search.

“Tell me it’s not. It is, but please, tell me I’m wrong.”

“Who?” he almost shouted. “It’s going to take a minute to run the search. Who do you think it is?”

“It’s Beckhart’s company. B3 Software,” she whispered. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

An endless minute ticked by before the search concluded. Sean shook his head.

“You’re right. That’s the IP address of B3 Software.” His fingers drummed on the table next to the laptop for a moment as he leaned back and stared at the screen. “I don’t understand, Nancy. I thought you cleared Beckhart and his company.”

“So did I, Ned,” she answered. “So did I.”