“No, but we’ll probably find one in every department,” he said. “How else do you hide office theft otherwise?”
She thought about it and shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe someone just in accounting and somebody who had physical access to nick the drugs.”
“What about the purchaser who brings it in?” Johan threw it out there for her to think about. “What if the research lab is bringing in way more than they need and charging Westgroup for it, and then only so much is showing up on the shelves?”
“That’s possible, but then I wouldn’t have seen it noted as inventory, and, in that case, it wouldn’t have gone missing,” she said slowly. “So, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense or—” and she stopped.
Both men looked at her and nodded in approval. “Or?” Johan prodded.
“Or,” she said, “more than one person is involved.”
“Not only more than one person is involved,” he said, “but more than one person is trying to steal the drugs, from the things we’ve found so far.”
She stared at him. “How high is the rate of employee theft in something like this globally?” she asked curiously.
“Globally?” Galen turned to look at Johan. “Not sure about globally but I’d say it’s pretty damn high. Probably ten percent.”
“Ten percent of companies have internal theft problems?”
“Not all companies suffer from employee theft,” Johan added. “I’m sure all the drug companies have a much higher incidence of that crime, due to the money to be made on the black market. And the percentage of internal theft is much higher too when you’re talking about medications, drugs, or any addictive substances like this. Now, if you’re just talking about office supplies, many people don’t even consider that theft. Tons of people take stuff home. Pads of paper, printer paper, notebooks, diaries, planners, and lots of other office supplies—like, you know, just pens stuck in their pockets or purses absentmindedly—and not necessarily with the intent to steal but to work at home, even though they haven’t signed it out or whatever.”
“Yes, I’ve seen a lot of that too,” she murmured. “Even things like, you know, packages of coffee disappear far too quickly.”
“With that kind of office supply stuff, the incidence of employee theft is extremely high, yet the cost to replace those items is nothing compared to replacing drugs. But picking up a whole case of ketamine? That is something entirely different.”
“Right,” she said, “and it makes absolutely no sense to me.”
“What do you know about a woman named Chelsea?” Johan asked.
“Don’t even know the name,” she said promptly.
“Interesting,” he said.
She studied Johan for a long moment. “Obviously it’s important, but I don’t know who she is or why you’re bringing her up.”
“She had your job before you did.”
“I don’t remember them saying I was replacing somebody. I thought they said they had split the job duties and now needed a new person.” She found herself trying to think back to exactly what happened. Then she shrugged. “I don’t remember what they said,” she confessed. “Is it important?”
“Not necessarily,” he said. “We do know that she used to work at the company, and she held your position.”
“So, whatever I was told was a lie?”
“Or potentially a job reshuffling did happen, and the title was changed,” Galen suggested.
“That’s possible too. So, what about this Chelsea?” She looked from one man to the other, waiting to hear more.
Galen nodded to Johan, who spoke up. “Well, that’s one of the things we wanted to know, if you’d heard anything about her from anybody.”
“Honestly, no. Nobody has mentioned her at all,” she said. “Now you’re worrying me as to why not.”
“Well, she’s dead for one thing.”
As bombshells went, that was a big one. Any reaction by Joy was cut off just then, as the waitress arrived with large plates of food. She put burgers and fries down in front of the guys and a big salad in front of her. Joy looked at it, then looked at theirs. “Dang, yours looks better than mine.”
Johan immediately offered her some of his.
“No. The salad’s better for me.” But she reached across to snag a fry off his plate. “I will take this though.”
He smiled and said, “Plenty more if you want them.”
She nodded and dug into her salad, while she tried to figure out who this Chelsea person was. “I work with two women. We’ve done some talking, not much,” she said. “They don’t seem to like each other, and they both really don’t like me. But so far neither has mentioned a Chelsea.”
“And, if you were to bring her up now,” Johan said, “it would be suspicious.”
“Very,” she said. “I’m not sure how I can find anything out.”
“Well, we’ve been into her employee file, and we’ve certainly checked what she was doing within the computer system, but there doesn’t appear to be anything suspicious, outside of the fact that she’s dead.”
“How did she die?”
“A hit-and-run,” Johan said.
Joy sank back in her chair. “Murdered, you think?” she asked, looking around to see if anybody heard her.
“Well, vehicular, as in manslaughter, is probably the charge that would be brought if the cops ever found out who did it,” Galen said. “But, according to the police, they don’t have a lead.”
She stared at her salad, suddenly not hungry. “Is there any reason to think it was deliberate?”
Both men shook their heads. Johan added, “Not at the moment.”
She let out her pent-up breath. “Well, that’s something at least,” she murmured.
“It is,” Johan said, “but we’re a little worried and want to make sure you stay safe.”
“Is there anything in her history that shows she raised the alarm over any other missing stuff?”
“No. Nothing we’ve found so far,” Johan replied. “Yet files can be deleted, altered, or made into what they weren’t.”
“What about her friends and family? Can you talk to them?”
“She was new to town, and her apartment has already been leased. Her mother didn’t have anything to offer and didn’t want to talk much about her daughter.”
“Can’t you find any of Chelsea’s friends, at work or elsewhere?”
“The cops already have,” Galen said, “and we have a copy of their file on Chelsea, but we don’t have anything to go on yet.”
Knowing she needed the food, even though her stomach was now churning uneasily, she finished her salad and put the plate off to the side, pulling her large mug of coffee toward her. “That’s a little unsettling,” she announced.
“We’re not telling you to upset you,” Johan said. “We’re telling you so you stay aware.”
She gave him a flat stare. “Aware of what? Being run down in the dark? Aware of an intruder? Aware that somebody may want to target me? What are you saying?”