Shades of Deception

The superintendent approached him and said, "The apartment is empty. Lisa moved out abruptly and left no forwarding address."

Shaun stood there in total disbelief and did not know what to think. He went back to the office, turned on his computer, but the screen was blank. He went to Lisa's workstation, and her screen was blank too.

At this point, he was confused and thought there was a power failure. He went to the file cabinet to retrieve the backed-up disks, but they were gone. At first, he thought there was a break-in, but there was no sign of a force entry, and nothing else was missing.

Expensive equipment lined the office. If thieves were going to steal anything, they would not have just taken disks and software. If he was at a loss as to what was going on, he was about to get the worst shock of his being.

To see what the problem was Shaun called in a technician to examine all the PCs.

The expert informed him that someone had scrubbed the hard drives cleaned of all files, programs, and software, and they were irretrievable. The operating system and programs that were previously on the PCs would have to be re-installed. However, this was impossible because all of the recovery, boot disks, and software applications were gone.

When Shaun checked his telephone messages, callers were inquiring about GMMS's web site. Paying members wanted to know what happened to the site and if GMMS was still in business.

Complaints were coming in left and right and accusing the company of swindling members out of their money.

The building manager sent a warning that two rent checks had bounced, and Shaun had five days to submit payment, or management would evict him. Next, he got a letter from the bank, informing him that the business account had a zero balance.

In a panic state, he left the loft and went to an Internet café to check his e-mail. The box was flooded with criticisms and protests from irate customers who threatened to report him to law enforcement and the Better Business Bureau for fraud.

He sent an e-mail to Divine to explain what was happening. Within five minutes, the e-mail came back with the following message: Mail could not be delivered. Box is closed.

It did not take long for Shaun to realize that Divine had conned him, and Lisa had methodically destroyed his company.

He could almost forgive Divine for her cunning conduct, but he could not understand why Lisa had done such an unspeakable and unforgettable act and started to think back to when the staff at the shop had accused him of embezzling money to finance GMMS.