“All of the above,” Galen said.
She just stared at him in shock.
Johan nodded. “What you may have just opened up is one huge can of worms,” he said. “It could be that it’s not just centered within this company, and it could have been operating for a very long time, considering that Westgroup has been in operation for forty-odd years. Just think about how many drugs could have potentially gone missing if there was cooperation within the company?”
“That’s all a little raw to think about,” she said slowly.
“It’s more than that,” Galen said. “It’s dangerous as hell. We don’t have any connection from Chelsea’s death to the company, but we don’t want to find a connection too late and take any chances by not giving you a heads-up.”
Her breath let out with a heavy whoosh. “And I live alone, so thanks for that. Now I won’t sleep again,” she snapped, looking from one to the other.
“Better you sleep aware and wake up versus not being aware of the dangers and risk never waking up,” Johan said.
The waitress came and took away Joy’s plate. Joy watched as the woman strode off toward the kitchen, Joy’s mind already on a million other things. It was the mundane reality of the everyday world that often helped Joy to reset her mind. “Sounds like a pattern is here,” she muttered.
The men looked at her. “In what way?”
“It’s hard to say,” she said, “but one of the things that I do like, or seem to find, are processes. Whether it’s a process within the company, and that’s a good process, or it’s a process that, in this case, is not good. I think a process is working inside the company’s processes,” she said. “I know that sounds confusing as hell, but someone somewhere along that line has a pinch point,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest, and she leaned back against the chair. “And I intend to find it.”
*
Johan knew a bit about what she had mentioned with pinch points and internal corporate processes from a previous job or two he had done. But those were dealing with chemical pinch points or mechanical pinch points, where physical problems could occur with employees. She was talking about theoretical pinch points or software pinch points here, like a double set of books or cooking the online books.
Even though the cops had been cooperative in sharing with Johan and Galen what little they had in Chelsea’s investigation file, the police had confirmed what Ice had said earlier. The detective was very clear and told Johan to back off the missing ketamine case and any attempts into delving further into Chelsea’s death. Those were his cases.
Still, like Ice had informed Harrison about the art theft case, Ice also instructed Johan that he and Galen would continue with their investigations into all elements as needed. That easily took care of that.
However, Johan didn’t know if Joy had taken the possible threat against her life seriously or not, given Chelsea’s fate, but everything inside Johan said that, instead of making her wary or more alert, the crime had fascinated her and had made her more determined to get to the bottom of it. And somebody who followed software processes to figure out where the pinch points were must have an interesting turn of mind. The fact that she was even intrigued by it fascinated him. Galen was right; something was very unusual about her. And Johan wanted to know more.
After they dropped her off again at the front entrance to the building, Johan drove around to the far side of the parking lot and parked. He hopped out, and Galen switched over to the driver’s side.
“I’ll be back with a different vehicle in an hour,” Galen said.
“Right. I’ll head back to the books,” Johan said.
He wasn’t really looking at the books, of course, but at the network, the security access for each employee, and the timing throughout the day when files were accessed and things like that.
When he came to the States to temporarily stay at Levi’s compound, Johan hadn’t really expected to be doing cyberwork. But he should have because that was a lot of what Levi did. As Johan walked down the hall toward his assigned space near the back exit, he passed a couple people who completely ignored him. Of course that had been the way of it since he’d arrived. He and Galen were strangers. Nobody knew anything about them, but nobody seemed to care one way or the other. And that was good with Johan. Being a shadow in the hallway gave him all kinds of access.
Just as the men were about to walk out the exit, Johan turned to catch sight of one of them turning to look at him. Johan smiled when the other man hurriedly turned away.
“Nice to meet you too,” he muttered to himself, as he meandered his way through the building, checking out what was behind various doors. Mostly storerooms were down here and several underground truck accesses, per the blueprints he had seen. He needed to make his way down there to the docks at some point and the lower levels as well.
He paused, thought about it, and, when he came to an exit with stairs going down, he decided it was the perfect time. He slipped through and headed all the way down, noting the cameras on various landings. Only in this one, there wasn’t any at the door he had come through. So far, people could come and go easily.
He’d have to check the hallway to see what cameras focused on that door. And he needed to find out how long they held the video feeds. Some places didn’t have the space to store endless security feeds and ditched them after twenty-four hours, which was completely useless in Johan’s mind.
As far as he was concerned, thirty days was a minimum. Particularly given the high-tech level of what this theft could have been. That also bothered him. Missing a physical case of drugs like that was a very low-tech theft, as if somebody made a quick decision, grabbed it, and ran.
He couldn’t put that thought out of his mind either. It’s quite possible that Chelsea, the woman Joy replaced, could have done just that, but why? Johan knew nothing about her really. She had been here for three months before she died. No, that doesn’t track, Johan thought. If she had come here to work with Westgroup, intent on stealing drugs, she’d have done it her first week here and then disappeared, before all her employee data was proved to be fabricated. Unless she had somehow been embraced by the thieves. Nah, doesn’t make sense either to accept a newbie within a long-term crew. More likely she had found an inventory problem, like Joy had, and had mentioned it to the wrong people.
Johan continued to ponder it further as he headed down yet another set of stairs. There had been one landing above, but, when he’d seen the other stairs, he couldn’t resist. He was now two stories below where he had been. It ended here, so he opened the double doors and stepped out.
He checked the darkened hallway, but he found no signs to direct him down here. And this level wasn’t the actual research lab; that was down the block. This may have been where some of the online research was done behind locked doors, he presumed, but not with animals. He sure hadn’t seen any here.
He wandered all the way down on that level, going to every door that he couldn’t access, only to find his key card didn’t let him into very much at all. He’d been told he’d have full access but apparently not down here.
And, of course, every time his card was swiped, it should have shown up on the security feed. So, if somebody was watching what he was doing, they would know exactly where he was. If this were his company, he’d make damn sure that every time somebody’s security card didn’t work in an unauthorized area, somebody armed and in uniform would be checking, in person, to see where the offenders were. Johan could only hope that was the case here. Yet he had already been at this for a good fifteen minutes, and no one was chasing him down. Johan shook his head. Still, he’d also been given clearance at the highest level, and he could go where he wanted without question.