Delirious by Daniel Palmer Read Free Book Online Page A

I’m fooling? Who are you fooling, Charlie?” Jerry asked. “Tell me, who gave you this alleged PowerPoint of mine?”
    He had no choice. The situation had changed. “Anne Pedersen,” Charlie said after a pause. “I got the deck from Anne Pedersen. She gave it to me a few days ago at lunch.”
    Charlie didn’t have time to think of the consequences, but the moment he spoke her name, he was awash with guilt. He remembered what she had told him. That she had just gotten divorced. He thought she had mentioned children to support. Surely she’d be fired after this came out in the open. But he wouldn’t let her down completely. He knew people. He could get her another job in another company if he had to.
    Charlie could see Jerry processing, thinking intently.
    Jerry spoke in a calm, dispassionate voice. “I don’t know who that is,” he said.
    Charlie glared at him. “You … you … don’t know who that is?” He was enraged at the audacity, Jerry’s ruthlessness. It was bad enough that Jerry had somehow switched presentations to cover his tracks and humiliate Charlie in the process, but to lie flat out was inconceivable.
    Charlie looked around the room for signs of support, anyone who was willing to speak on his behalf, at least acknowledge that they knew, worked with, or ate lunch with Anne Pedersen. But it was clear that nobody wanted any part of this. They stayed quiet.
    “Watch out, Charlie,” Yardley interrupted. “You’re getting a bit out of hand.”
    “I’m out of hand? I’m out of hand?” Charlie said, the second time much louder. “Jerry here is playing games, and I don’t know what this is all about. A woman named Anne Pedersen contacted me. She gave me this file,” he said, holding up his USB key. “I looked her up in the corporate directory. She works for you, Jerry! For you! And you don’t know a thing about this? Come on!” Charlie slammed his open palm against the polished mahogany table with a resounding thud that shot through the silent room like a clap of thunder.
    “That’s enough! Enough!” Leon Yardley stood. He pointed to Charlie’s empty chair. “Mr. Giles, it is in your best interest to take a seat now.”
    Charlie did as instructed as Yardley turned to speak to Jerry.
    “Jerry, you stand behind your claims? You never intended to discredit InVision today. And Anne Pedersen is not your employee.”
    “I do,” Jerry said.
    “Let’s get to the bottom of this, then.” Yardley grabbed the conference room Polycom and dialed the operator. He asked for Gail Lyndon in Human Resources. The moment she answered, he asked that she look up Anne Pedersen’s employment history.
    “We don’t have any employee named Anne Pedersen,” came her reply over the speakerphone.
    Yardley spelled the name, looked to Charlie for confirmation. Charlie nodded. For a moment, the only sound was that of a keyboard typing on the other end of the phone.
    “I’m sorry,” Gail said. “But we don’t have any employee with the last name Pedersen.”
    Yardley clasped his hands tightly together and looked over at Charlie. “I’m listening,” he said.
    Charlie stammered, “I told you what I know. A woman named Anne Pedersen, who claimed to work for Jerry, gave me the file. She was an employee. She had a badge. Leon, she gave me the file!” He sounded desperate. Of course it happened, Charlie thought. It was as real as this nightmare was now.
    “How do you account for her not existing, Charlie?” Jerry said.
    Charlie thought for a moment. “I’ll show you how.”
    He stood and walked to the computer and opened the PowerPoint presentation that Anne Pedersen had given him. The title slide was projected on the screen.
    “Each PowerPoint file has associated properties. These properties tell when a file was created, modified, and who made it. Any file created by a person on the SoluCent network will list that person’s name as the author. This is your file, Jerry, so I’m guessing your name is