Brooke cocked her head, not following. “Just the descriptions? Why would anyone want to do that?”

Keith pulled a document out of his file folder and slid it across her desk. “Perhaps this will answer that.”

She picked up the pages, a spreadsheet she was familiar with. Whenever a Sterling employee charged something to his or her purchasing card, they were required to enter into the Citibank database a brief explanation of the business expense, such as “Dinner with the L.A. Arena lawyers.” Brooke skimmed through Ian’s May expenses, not seeing anything out of the ordinary until she got to the entries for a business trip he’d taken to Los Angeles to look at some potential restaurant space, a possible expansion for Sterling now that the company had a presence in L.A. via the sports and entertainment division.

Then there was no missing the changes.

Dinner in L.A. with some of my faggot friends.

Picked up a queer dude in tight pants and bought him drinks before bringing him back to my pansy-ass hotel suite.

Cab fare to “Sperm-Burpers Anonymous” meeting.

And so on.

It was safe to say that Brooke had moved beyond pissed at that point. “Pissed” was how she felt the time someone let their dog poop on the sidewalk in front of her building and she stepped in it while climbing into a cab wearing three-inch heels. But breaking into company records and writing homophobic slurs against her boss? That was whole different ball game.

She set the spreadsheet off to the side. “Do we know who did this?”

“No, although we at least know how he did it,” Keith said. “As soon as I saw this, I talked to the managers about all recent terminations, anyone who might have expressed anger at Ian or Sterling in general. There was nothing in particular that jumped out at anyone. But what occurred to us is that only Ian or his secretary should have had access to his online expense files.”

“I can’t believe Liz would’ve had anything to do with this,” Brooke said. Ian’s assistant had been with him for years.

“Not intentionally, no. But as it turns out, she never changed her password from the default one we’d assigned to all employees back when we updated everyone’s computers to the new software. She’s still been using ‘Sterling 1-2-3’ all this time.”

Brooke sighed. Note to self: send out memo telling all employees to change their passwords immediately. “Then this could’ve been anyone.”

“Essentially, yes,” Keith said. “I’ve been working with the folks at Citibank, and they provided me with a list of the date and times that Ian’s entries were altered, as well as the IP address for the computer from which the changes had been made. Based on a Google IP search, I’ve been able to determine that the ass**le in question did this from a computer in the Chicago area.”

“That covers about eighty percent of all Sterling employees and ex-employees.”

“Unfortunately, yes. And since that’s the extent of what I can do, I contacted the FBI.” Keith rolled his eyes in frustration. “The agent I spoke to said that because there was no actual loss of funds, and because this guy didn’t technically hack into the bank’s system—he used the default password and someone else’s username—the matter would be viewed as ‘low priority.’ When I pressed him on how low of a priority, he said he’d have to get back to me. Frankly, I’d be surprised if I ever hear from him again.”

And if that were the case, the jerk who’d done this would get away scot-free, still employed by Sterling. Luckily, however, Brooke knew someone who had the means to make sure that didn’t happen.

Someone who just so happened to owe her a favor.

“Thank you, Keith,” she said. “I can take things from here.”

* * *

A FEW MINUTES later, she knocked on the door to Ian’s office.

“Got a second?” she asked when he looked up from his desk.

Ian waved her inside. “Sure. Come on in.” When Brooke shut the door behind her, he studied her serious expression. “Oh, shit. Don’t tell me we’ve got another murderer.”

Brooke smiled slightly at the joke. At least now they could laugh about that. But this new situation . . . not so much. She took a seat in front of his desk and came right out with it. “Someone broke into the Citibank purchasing card database and altered a few of your entries. Specifically, they changed the descriptions for the expenses you incurred during your last trip to L.A.”

Ian looked at her in confusion. “The descriptions? Why would anyone do that?”

“To be malicious. We don’t know yet if it’s a current or former employee. We have determined, however, that this person took advantage of the fact that Liz was still using the default password.” She slid the spreadsheet Keith had given her across Ian’s desk. “I thought you should see this.”

Ian took the document from her, clearly still not following, and began to skim. After a few moments, his mouth pulled tight. He finished reading, and then set the spreadsheet down. “‘Sperm-burper.’ I haven’t heard that one since high school.”

“We have the IP address of the person who did this, but Keith was only able to narrow the person’s location to Chicago. The FBI is calling this a ‘low-priority’ matter, but I have a contact who might be able to help us out.”

“It’s not the first time I’ve been called a few bad words, Brooke. Do what you can, but I’m not asking you to make a federal case out of this. Yes, pun intended.”