The Wedding

Chapter 14: The Men in My Life

On the following day, I still locked myself in my room. I finished all my work on my to-do list, sent them through courier, and fixed the mistakes in the project. I had zero interest in meeting Desmond or the other members of... Well, could I still call them as my team when they're not really my team. Also, because it felt like they ditched me from the team two days ago. Nobody visited me too, not Frida nor Hendra. Speaking of which, I didn't see him at all today. He wasn't in his room, in the pantry, copy room, gym, or even canteen. He was nowhere to be found. Did he just leave and ignore me?

On the following day when I still didn't see him, I paid a visit to Hendra's room again. I peeked on his room but couldn't find him. His jacket and bag were inside but the room was as cold as a cemetery. I went to the pantry and hid there when I saw people went to Doyle's room. When I was about to lave my hiding place, I bumped into him.

Hendra entered the pantry with a big glass on his hand. There's a dark circle under his eyes to prove that the coffee he took was enough to make him awake.

"Oh, hi," he greeted as if he did not know I was looking for him these past three days.

"Hi," I responded. "Sorry I used up the water in the kettle. You need to boil the water first before making the coffee," I said to him showing the empty kettle with no water inside.

"No. I'm enough with coffee," he said. "Do you drink coffee too?" he asked looking at my cup.

"Sometimes. Arabica and Robusta," I answered.

"Ah, only the best?"

Hendra moved on step forward, blocking me from the people outside the room. Thank God he hid me with his posture so other people wouldn't be able to see me in this room.

"How are you?" Hendra asked. His tone was serious and concerned, totally different from the lousy tone before.

"I think..." to be honest, Mr Hendra, you were too close to me that made it difficult from me to think. "I'm just trying to accept reality." The reality that I had no proof of my words, that the company would choose Desmond over me like what they did to Zefanya, and that all my hardworking claimed by other people.

It was so sudden and faster than a lightning bolt that my brain didn't get the chance to process it. The only thing I knew was my face was covered by his chest and his body was against me. Hendra hugged me!

"I'm sorry I couldn't be there with you and let you cried alone," he whispered.

I could smell his perfume and sweat and somehow it calmed my nerves down. He put his hands on my back and head. For a second I felt peace but after that I pushed him away.

"It's okay... It's not your fault," said I stuttering. I could feel my body temperature heightened and my face turned red.

Hendra looked at me with worried face. It was not a pity; it was a friendly face full of concerned about someone. I had seen this face before when he drove me to catch up with Tessa. Did he care for me?

"I should've come to you but I couldn't because I had to find this..." Hendra showed a flash disk from his pocket. "These data will help you prove what happened to your accounts and computer during the days you were doing the project and not with your groupmates."

I looked at his eyes, then looked at the flash disk he entrusted me.

"Follow me and I'll show it to you," he said. He put his glass on the sink and walked to his room. I walked behind him.

His room this time smelled like lavender mixed with lemongrass. He put lavender and lemongrass as decorations in his room. Gentle lavender is known to be calming and balancing, while lemongrass' citrus scent is known to be uplifting and cleansing which made them the perfect combination for aromatherapy scents even though in this case, he used real and fresh lavender flowers and lemongrass sticks. By the way, for the information in this paragraph, I googled it later.

"Nice perfume choice," I commented pointing at lavender flowers and lemongrass sticks.

Hendra smiled. "Ahh, Zefanya chose it. I'm not really into aromatherapy and she's the best," he answered. Looking at how easily that smile clung onto his face, he must be close to Zefanya.

Hendra plugged in the flash disk into his computer and opened the drive. It contained files which led to videos. He clicked and it showed the video from a camera pointed from the elevator angle to my room which clearly showed when Desmond went to my room when Hendra and I met him on the elevator when we were going to a department store.

Hendra also opened another file but this file was in form of notepad. It contained a long list of words that I did not understand. It was like a data encryption.

"This... shows the timeline of your computer usage and activities. It showed that you were using your computer when..." Hendra opened another file, "... when you signed out from work. Someone logged in to your account from your computer, opened your files, made changes there, copied your files and deleted them. " The file he just opened showed my attendance record when I fingerprinted out. They both showed the same time.

I was amazed by how smart Hendra was. Did he try to find all these proofs that's why I couldn't see him these past few days?

"The only person went to your room on that exact time was..." Hendra opened another file contained a video, a CCTV video showing an angle in front of the elevator door, "...your team leader." The camera showed the activity when Desmond, Hendra, and I were crossing our paths in front of the elevator. Hendra and I were going inside the elevator and Desmond was going outside. It also showed that he went to my room.

"Got you, Desmond!" I said in thrilled.

Hendra looked at me with a different facial expression.

"What's with your look?" I asked nervously.

"Do you realize that these are all only indirect proof? We don't have legitimate evidence that he stole your files. Indeed, he went to your room and might copy your files but which files are copied aren't clear," said Hendra.

"Shit!" that word just came out of my mouth. Hendra was surprised hearing it so I said, "sorry, I don't mean it for you. I... I mean it to Desmond... and his devilish actions..." I wondered why I stuttered.

There was a silent in the next few minutes. We both were busy thinking and chewing the fact that what happened to Zefanya would soon happen to me and just like last time, this time we still couldn't do anything about it.

"So, that's it? This company will just let it slide just because Desmond knows the insider?" I said bitterly.

Hendra bit his lips. "I think I have an idea."

"I'm all ears," I moved to a chair in front of him and sat down.

"We need someone to crack his computer and laptop. If your team made changes to the files, Desmond must have kept the original files. The original files should contain who made the files from beginning," he said.

I couldn't imagine the head of Human resources would say such thing.

"You do realize that you're proposing to break some rules and articles, don't you?"

Hendra ignored me. "I can ask Desmond to meet me at my room but I won't be in my room. Your role is to distract him and confront him, make a scene, do whatever it takes to make him stay in this floor as long as it takes to take the files. We need a tech man to help us gather the data but this person better be someone knows about Desmond." Hendra then explained to me his plan.

I would think it was a joke if I had not seen how serious Hendra crafted his plan. It was like in movies. We're going to be like an agent, or a criminal, hacking into someone's computer. I never did it.

"Have you ever done this before?" I asked him suspiciously.

Again, he ignored my question. "Do you know a hacker?"

I pressed my lips, thinking if I know a tech man. Then I remembered. "I might know a guy who can do it."