Immediately Galen’s face fell.
But Johan just laughed out loud, delighted with himself.
Chapter 4
The rest of the week was a repeat of Monday. She came into work, buckled down to the stacks of paper she had to go through, got up with her clipboard to double-check various things that needed checking, and wandered past the men working in the next room, and, most of the time, found them there. When they weren’t there, she stopped and wondered where the hell they were. But nobody talked to her about it. She had no more strange meetings. No more strange anything really, just the sense of being part of a conspiracy against the company. And that felt wrong too. Her section boss never called her upstairs anymore, and the other two women just kept working at her side. Nobody made any comments about anything.
On Friday, Johan stopped at her doorway and asked to speak with her for a few minutes. Surprised, she stood and walked toward him. “Is there something I can help you with?”
He motioned her out into the hallway and said in a low voice, “Come out for lunch with us.”
She checked her watch and nodded. “I have lunch with me today,” she said, “but I guess I can have it for dinner tonight. My lunch break is in about five minutes.”
“We’ll wait in the parking lot for you,” he murmured before he turned and walked away.
She headed back in to find the two women staring at her. She just shrugged and didn’t say anything. She sat back down to her work, but she only had a couple more minutes before she left again. One of the ladies, Doris, got up to go, leaving just Phyllis here.
“You got something going with that hunky investigator?” Phyllis asked.
Surprised, Joy looked at her and blushed. “No,” she said. “I don’t.”
“Well, you should,” she said. “You definitely should. He’s perfect. Real dream material and he’s interested.”
“Maybe so,” Joy said, “but that doesn’t mean he’s available.”
“Who cares?” Phyllis said carelessly. “Have a night’s romp and enjoy it. If he’s got a wife back home, it’s not like you’ll be hurting her.”
Joy hated that attitude but kept the smile pinned to her face. It never did any good to make enemies in the office.
Phyllis stood and stretched, then said, “I’ve got another half hour before I go to lunch,” she said, “but I have to take a pee break.” With that, she rushed from the office.
Joy wasn’t sure if Phyllis really was going to the ladies’ room or not, but, regardless, it was Joy’s lunchtime now. So, logging off her computer, she grabbed her purse, slung it over her shoulder, and walked to the nearest exit. She didn’t pass anybody on the way, but, for days now, she had felt like she was being watched.
Outside, she walked to the large parking lot, unsure where the guys were. A truck pulled up, and, seeing Galen in the passenger seat, Joy hopped into the back, and they quickly drove away.
“Will anybody see me in here?” she asked, leaning forward.
“Won’t matter. We’ll change the vehicle after lunch,” Galen said.
“You realize that, since you guys showed up, it feels like I’m being watched all the time?”
Johan, who was driving, caught her gaze in the rearview mirror. “Seriously?”
“Yes. At first, I kept turning around, and the women finally snapped at me because I was bugging them. But it just feels wrong.”
“And it’s from behind you in your office?”
She nodded. “And, yeah, I did look but didn’t see any cameras or anything terribly obvious.”
“Interesting,” they murmured.
“Other than that, it’s been really quiet,” she said. “Almost too quiet.”
“In what way?”
“Normally I would have meetings with my section boss once a day, or every couple days at least, just touching base to see what’s happening with my work, that type of thing. James has avoided me entirely this week.”
“Well, today’s Friday, so it will be interesting to see what he’s like next week.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Something just feels wrong.”
“Good point,” Johan said. “We’ll be doing some work in the office over the weekend.”
“They’re letting you in?”
“Well, we do have a pretty high security clearance,” he said, “but we’ll be doing a lot of it through remote access.”
“That makes more sense,” she said. “Did you guys have a reason for bringing me outside the office for lunch?”
“We would wait until the end of the day,” he said, “but we figured we’d start now.”
Not liking the mysterious way they’d explained it, she said, “Well, I hope I get lunch at the same time.”
They burst out laughing. “We’ll go to a restaurant up ahead,” Johan said, pulling into a restaurant parking lot.
They hopped out. It was one of those casual café places and kind of noisy. She was surprised; obviously they wouldn’t be talking about anything to do with work in this place.
They quickly ordered lunch, paid for it, and headed for a table at a far corner, where it was quieter, carrying a little wooden card with a number on it. They placed it on the table so the server could find them when their order was ready.
She glanced around and said, “I don’t know this place.”
“Not a surprise if you haven’t had much time to get out yet,” Johan said.
“Since I started working, there hasn’t been any time at all.”
“What do you do when you go home?” Johan asked casually.
“Laundry and cooking,” she said promptly. “Grocery shopping too because I never seem to get enough at once, and I’m still trying to find stores that carry some of my favorite foods. By the time I get home, I’m usually too tired for much else.”
They nodded, and a long silence ensued.
Finally she couldn’t stand it any longer. “Did you guys find anything?” she whispered.
“Yep,” they both said.
“But it goes deep,” came the response from Galen.
She sagged in her chair. “I was so hoping that you wouldn’t find anything, that it was all just a clerical error.”
“But you also knew it wasn’t,” Johan said, “and that’s why you contacted Kai.”
“Yeah. I should call her. I think I’m due for a girls’ night out.” She reached up to rub her temples. “Will I have to look for a new job?”
“It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Galen said. “Not too sure how the company will rebound after all this becomes public.”
“It’ll become public?” she asked in horror. “They hire an awful lot of people. I’d hate to think they could all lose their jobs over this.”
“Well, what we don’t know at the moment,” Johan said, “is how many people are involved.”
She turned up her nose at that. “Over 240 staff work there,” she said, “so I can’t imagine that very many have anything to do with the issue we’re dealing with.”