Page 66 of My Secret Snowflake
“There,” Iris says. “It’s moving over there. Let’s follow them.” We scoot behind a line of pedestrians advancing down the pavement. Iris shivers and sticks her hands into her pockets.
“Can you show me what you found?” I ask.
“Yes,” Iris says. “Also, I received another Secret Snowflake gift today—a very dog-eared copy ofZero Trust Networks, which I swear I’ve seen on Raphael’s shelves. Raphael must be my Secret Snowflake. I asked his assistant if she was sending me his gifts, but she said no.”
“Did you think she was going to tell you if she was?”
Iris pouts. “So many secrets.”
“Christmas is kind of a time for secrets—the whole Santa Claus thing, and parents trying to keeps gifts hidden from their children—but there’s a joyful revelation at the end,” I say.
Iris glances at me. “I hope it’s joyful in this case. I feel so guilty about getting this promotion because of Raphael leaving.” Her face is clouded by concern and doubt.
“Raphael is a grown-up. He made a decision to leave, and he received a very sizable severance package.”
“Did he?”
“I shouldn’t have told you that.” I shake my head. I’m usually very good at keeping company matters confidential. Iris just seems to be able to undermine my defenses.
“So did you discover where your parents hid your presents?” she asks.
“Yes, in a bathroom closet, high up. And my mom sometimes hid them under the bed. I bet you found where your parents hid yours.”
“They hid them in the basement. They really didn’t do a very good job. I hide all my presents in an extra laundry bag because my siblings will definitely look if they come over. Believe me, nobody goes looking in the dirty laundry.”
“Clever,” I say.
“Except that the true meaning of Christmas—and any holiday, really—is not a secret,” Iris says slowly. “It’s about giving and creating community. It’s about shining light when the season is at its darkest.”
She looks up at me, and her eyes brim with tears. I want to kiss them away.
I pull her closer to me. My usual flippant response isn’t the right answer here. “We’ll figure out what’s going on.”
BackatDream,wemeet in my office since Iris’s desk has no privacy. Iris places her laptop on my desk and scoots her chair around so we’re sitting next to each other. She’s wearing this soft, fluffy pink sweater that looks like an invitation to touch. I turn away and sign into my computer.
“How did you find out what was stolen?” I ask.
“Raphael put them in his investigation files. We keep a backup of all our files offsite in case of a ransomware attack. Raphael’s backup files were not deleted, and I found the two presentations in his investigation files in a folder called Zero Trust. Raphael said I had to follow the clues. I think his sending me that book was the first clue.”
“Wow, that’s clever. Doesn’t Kevin know about the backup?”
“He definitely knows we have a backup, but he must’ve assigned the deletion to Hank. According to the version history, Hank deleted Raphael’s files. Like I said, Hank was hired as a favor, and he’s not the most competent guy.”
“And isn’t Kevin a good friend of Colby’s from college?”
“I didn’t know that,” she says.
“Bob mentioned it,” I say.
“Who would want to steal the board presentations?” Iris asks. “Rivals? The competing CEOs? Is that legal?”
“Not without some official company authorization. The work product is the property of the company, but the CEO is not the company. Also, don’t you agree that Kevin must be involved because there’s that partially executed agreement authorizing white hat hacking? Can I see the presentations?”
“Here are the documents. I copied them into another file on premise.” She hands me the documents.
I read aloud the file name where she re-saved the board presentations on our system. “Backup for Training on Interacting with Colleagues—Think Courtesy.”
“Nobody is going to want to look at that,” she says.
