“Sir one of the security men brought something, they said that they saw it outside our office door last night, during their patrol” The young said.
“What is it?” Simon asked.
“A flash”
“Flash?” Simon asked.
“Yes sir” The man replied as he revealed the flash drive to his boss.
“That’s not mine, you should probably ask the others” Simon told him. He certainly didn’t have a flash drive that looked like that.
“Sir I already did, but no one seem to own it”
“Really? Well I don’t have a flash like that” He turned to Sara and Jade, “Sara you guys should check if this belongs to any of you” Simon told them.
They all looked at the flash drive which the guy showed to them and shook their head.
“No that’s not mine”
“I don’t own that”
“No”
They answered simultaneously.
Simon turned to the guy who had brought it over. “I don’t think someone from here lost it. If he found it by the door, then it might have dropped off from someone else who might have passed through or had dropped by here” He reasoned
“Who could be careless enough to lose a flash? Isn’t it important?” Julius scoffed. In an organization like theirs everyone was supposed to be careful with things like that. It might not belong to the company but it might contain something useful.
“He or she might be looking for it” Jade said dismissively as she turned back to face the monitor. She looked at the time, she had two more hours to find that proof. She didn’t have the time to bother about a missing flash, maybe some other day she’d had been interested in helping to find the rightful owner. She couldn’t even begin to imagine losing hers. A lot of important stuffs were kept there for backup.
“I’ll just keep it in the locker for ‘found’ stuff” The young man suggested.
“Sure” Simon nodded giving the guy a pat on the back, as he turned to leave.
“Wait!” Simon stopped him. The guy went back to where Simon was standing.
“Julius take a look at it, maybe you can find something that could reveal who it belongs to, or atleast what department to go” Simon ordered.
“Yes boss” Julius nodded and took the flash from the guy.
Simon looked at Jade who had a contorted look on her face. He could imagine how fast the neurons in her brain were firing at the moment.
He gave a knowing look to Sara, surreptitiously asking her to comfort Jade, but Sara shook her head. She knew Jade was on a edge right now and being comforted with no actual solution was probably going to make her snap.
Simon feigned a sneer at her, before taking a step closer to Jade. He was about to crouch down next to her, when his eyes caught something by Sara’s foot under the desk.
“You ladies can be quite annoying. Why fix them when you can’t keep them” He said as he glared at Sara.
“I know it belongs to you, pick it up” He ordered, making Jade to snap out of her reverie. She looked at her boss who was miraculously by her side. She noticed the way he was glaring at Sara’s feet and she lowered her eyes to look.
“That’s not mine” Sara declared feigning a frown at her boss who had just accused her.
Simon was about to say something to her, when Julius called out from his desk, not too far away.
“Boss you should come see this. Jade you too” He said in a cryptic voice. Jade looked at him with dull eyes but remained on her seat. She wasn’t up for anything time wasting. She had to come up with something. Even if she couldn’t find anything to expose Stephanie, she had to find a way to make her come clean. There was no way she was going to fall into Stephanie’s trap. That was impossible.
“Jade!”
Jade jolted when she heard her name being echoed by so many voices. She turned towards Julius table and was quite surprised to find almost the whole department gathered around his desk, their eyes glued to whatever they found interesting.
“Come on let’s go see” Sara said as she stood to her feet. “And here, I don’t know who it belongs to. I don’t know he had to accuse me” Sara mumbled those last words as she walked to join the party.
She said as she walked away. Jade looked at what Sara had dropped in the desk and she hissed and walked away. Why were people dropping irrelevant things? And by the way that has been there since yesterday.
If only Stephanie was stupid enough to drop any of these, then it would be game over.
Jade reluctantly walked towards Julius table. She was shocked when Julius stood up from his seat and pulled her to the front so she could see.
Her eyes bulged when she saw the video playing on the screen.
“Is that from the…..”
“Yes it is” Julius confirmed.
“Seriously?” She asked in unbelief.
“Yes”
“He’s not lying” Simon reassured her.
“Sir but who could do this? Who owns the flash?” Sara asked inquisitively as she looked at Simon.
Simon turned to Julius and inquired, “Yes who owns the flash? Did you by chance see anything relating to the owner?” He was also curious to know. He’d be the one to personally report the issue back to the President. He didn’t care whoever it was, that person who have to pay for making him and his team lose face.
Jade didn’t need to confirm who the person was. She knew the culprit already. She was about to open her mouth and speak, when Julius spoke up first.
“It’s Mr Alan”
Jade didn’t think she had heard well. Why did it seem like she had just heard Mr Alan’s name and not Stephanie’s.
“Mr Alan?” She turned to Julius and asked with uncertainty. She was sure he had called the wrong name. It couldn’t be him. Definitely not Mr Alan.
“Yes” Julius nodded affirmatively.
Simon was also stunned when he heard Alan’s name. Of all people he didn’t think Alan could do something like this?
‘There must be a mix up somewhere. There has got to be a logical explanation for this’ He reasoned.
“That’s impossible” Simon said. It could be anybody else, but certainly not Alan. That man had one of the most enviable personalities in the company. He remembered how he had warned him to take care of his favorite intern, and he also remembered how he had defended Jade when she had that problem with Cale, so how possible was it that same man was behind something as implicating as this?
Jade couldn’t believe it, she hurriedly surfed through the flash and indeed she noticed a few stuff that carried Mr Alan’s name, as well as a picture of him and his family. Jade felt like a lump in her throat, her stomach churned and her heart fall through the pit of her stomach.
She snapped her head towards Julius and asked in disbelief, “It’s Mr Alan and not Stephanie?” even though she had seen it with her own eyes she couldn’t believe it.
“Stephanie?” Simon asked looking at her with curious and confused eyes. Why would she ever think it was Stephanie?
Jade was too stunned to reply back to Mr Simon. She didn’t want to accept the fact that the owner of this flash was Mr Alan. The man had helped her beyond measure, so it was quite difficult to accept something like this was even possible.
“Excuse me sir” Jade said as she picked up the flash drive and stormed out of the office with a graven look on her face leaving the others with alot of questions and confusion. She had to confront Mr Alan for this.
With anger seething in her eyes, Jade made her way to Mr Alan’s office. She could feel her blood boil with so much anger. Mr Alan had better have a good explanation for this. He should tell her that he lost his flash or someone had stolen it to do something like this. She didn’t want to experience being betrayed by someone she had come to love and respect. She didn’t want that at all.
Jade was about to knock on the door of Mr Alan’s office, when she heard a familiar voice coming out from the office.
‘What was she doing here?’ She asked herself.
She looked at both sides of the hall way to check if anyone was coming. She inclined her ear to the door to eavesdrop when she saw no one coming.
“I hate that I had to do this to Jade. She’s a nice girl–”
“But your daughter comes first. Be happy you now have the balance for your daughter’s surgery, and if I were you I’ll be on my way to the hospital. Jade is nobody to you. Why are you all acting like she’s some goddess or something. I’m far better than that girl” Stephanie hissed in annoyance. She didn’t understand why they revered that good for nothing, when she was quite better than her. Stupid fools!
“But even at that, I shouldn’t have lowered my principles to–” The man tried speaking but Stephanie rudely interrupted him.
“Mr Alan your principles won’t save your daughter, but money would and now you have it. You should take it and add up to the one you’ve got and go save her. Jade is not your child and stop talking as if she’s some saint, she’s just a two faced bitch” Stephanie snapped irritably as she stood up to her feet to leave.
“Why did you do this to Jade? What has she done to you?” Mr Alan couldn’t help but ask. Stephanie paused and looked at back at him.
With her eyes narrowed, and flashes of anger and hatred in it, she replied, “Her existence in my space is what she has done wrong” Stephanie replied before turning to leave.
Mr Alan didn’t know what to say, he lowered his head down and looked at the envelope which Stephanie had just dropped on his desk. He felt a pang in his chest. No matter the reason for doing this he couldn’t get the disappointed feeling off his heart. He felt disappointed to stoop low as to framing a girl who had been nothing but nice to him.
He had rejected this offer when Stephanie had came to him at first because he had been hopeful of the company granting his request for a loan.
But Stephanie returned using the opportunity of the board declining his request because he had already been issued one before, and the higher up had helped him in paying for one of his daughter’s previous surgeries.
Jade stepped away from the door when she heard the clicking sound of Stephanie’s shoes. She didn’t want to let her know she had heard them talk about her, so she quickly hid her phone in her pocket and some steps backwards.
Stephanie was surprised to see Jade at the door, from the look of things she had only arrived there, or so she thought.
A smug smile appeared on her face as she scanned Jade from top to bottom. She tsked and shook her head amusedly.
“How the mighty has fallen?” Stephanie said with an impish smile tugging her lips.
“I heard what happened with your presentation, was it fun?” She cocked her brow tauntingly.
“I really didn’t take you for the kind to watch such lewd stuff. Ah looks can be very deceptive. Who would think that you do this type of things” She hissed pitiably.
“Who would have thought the mighty and intelligent Jade would be this stupid?” Her smile didn’t leave her face as she spoke but Jade kept a straight face as she listened to all the trash coming out of her mouth. Stephanie also stopped talking when she noticed her words were having no reaction on Jade and that made her frown.
“Wait, are you still going to pretend that you’re still unfazed about this? Do you think pretending will help you?” Stephanie taunted.
“Do you want me to be fazed about it? From your ‘concern’ I might think you have a hand in this, or do you?” Jade asked, her look and tone was indifferent. “It would be a shame if something as beautifully planned out as this didn’t come from that brain of yours” She hissed.
“But then again i know you can never be smart enough to pull off something like this. You’re still–” Jade purposefully slurred her speech.
“So what if I am?” Stephanie asked smugly, a cynical smile grazing her lips as she took a step closer to Jade, placing her hand on Jade’s shoulder.
“So what if am, what can you do?” She asked defiantly. Jade was looking down on her wasn’t she?
“So I planned it out, now you know. So what? Can you prove it?” She cocked her brow tauntingly.
Jade scoffed when she noticed Stephanie’s hand on her, and she chuckled in her mind at how foolish she was.
“It was stupid of me to think you might have done something smart this time, but it seems you still have fish brain in that empty head of yours.” Jade said as she brushed Stephanie’s hand from her.
Stephanie was quite startled by Jade’s behavior. This wasn’t the reaction she had expected from her.
‘She must be pretending that she isn’t affected by all this’ Stephanie reasoned in her mind. She scoffed.
“I know you’re squirming inside of you but you’re pretending not to be. Tch, what a loser”
Jade shot her a condescending look and hissed with displeasure.
“Stephanie, you should be the one squirming. Because right now I have your destiny in my hand and you should be on your knees begging me, but then I don’t need it.” She paused and took a step closer to her, so they could stand eye ball to eyeball.
“The next time you want to play dirty, make sure you grow some brains first but then there won’t be a next time, because I promise you by the end of the day, you’ll have your box in your hands standing outside this very building with a new identity, and that would be, ‘jobless'” Jade menanced.
Jade didn’t bother going into Mr Alan’s office after her encounter with Stephanie, she didn’t see the need to. She already had what she needed so there’s was no need going to ask him why he did what she did. So rather she made her way back to the office. She brought out her phone from her pocket and looked at the recorder which was still on. She saved the recording she had made of Mr Alan’s and Stephanie conversation and also of that between her and Stephanie.
WATCHOUT FOR EPISODE 25
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