Johan's Joy (Heroes for Hire #22) - Dale Mayer Page 0,35
could only be somebody involved in the theft.”
“But that could mean anybody in the whole company,” Joy said.
“Or from one of the related companies,” Galen added.
“Not to mention some thug hired off the street,” Johan said.
“Or maybe the bugs were left behind by the previous tenant,” Tyson guessed.
“Except for the opportunity to get a copy of my key.” Joy sighed, looking slowly at everyone.
“But you have to take into consideration that any one of us,” Galen said, apologetically looking at Joy, “could pick that lock in ten seconds flat.”
She wrinkled up her face at him. “Oh, please, not in ten seconds.”
“Only ten seconds if we were out of practice,” Johan said. “All of us would pride ourselves on doing it in much less time.”
She reached up to massage her forehead. “So, can I even go back to my apartment?”
“The team pulled the bugs,” Tyson said quietly. “So, for the moment, it’s safe in that regard. We could set an alarm so that it triggers a security response at the compound, if somebody opened that door. You may want to find some other place to live in the meantime.”
“But then they’ll know that I’m on to them,” Joy said, “and that can’t be very smart either.”
“Possibly not,” Tyson acknowledged.
“It all sucks,” she said.
“It absolutely does.”
“So what’s the best answer, you guys?” Joy asked. “Is there any way to track those bugs? Find out who placed them in my apartment?”
“No. However, the bugs are on their way to Levi’s compound,” Tyson said. “We’ll do the best we can to see, but they look fairly innocuous, as in anybody could have bought them over the internet.”
“And, of course, they don’t come with a signature or anything that says, ‘Hey, we did this,’ right?”
Johan shook his head and said, “Sorry. You also don’t have any video cameras in the apartment building, so there’s no way to track if anybody had entered that way.”
“I’m on the third floor,” she said. “I suppose it wouldn’t be all that hard for somebody who’s good at this to climb up and get in through the glass doors. But apparently it is pretty easy to get in through the front door, so why bother?”
The men just nodded and continued to eat their dinner.
Making a steeple with her fingers, Joy rested her chin on top of her hands. “It sounds like the best thing would be if I continue to do nothing and let you guys set up whatever it is you’re setting up to try to catch the people who did this.”
“But we also have to set up something at the company,” Tyson said. “This can’t be one single prong. Otherwise it won’t work.”
“We don’t even know who at the company is involved,” she said. Turning, she looked at Galen and Johan. “Unless you two found something.”
Both men shrugged, and Galen said, “Not yet. So far we have those four accounts that have been compromised, and we’re still trying to trace the materials sitting in those three locked rooms downstairs in the building—from either end, whether the seller or the buyer.”
“And I don’t understand that either,” she said. “I don’t have any record of surplus supplies designated in those three storerooms on Level B3 in my inventory.”
“I was checking that just before we left today,” Johan said. “None of the numbers that I randomly scanned in match up with any of the inventory online.”
“And there are three rooms full?” Kai asked.
“Yes,” Johan said. “All different types of materials though. The last room appears to be medications, like drugs and chemicals.”
Kai nodded slowly. “I wonder how old they are, whether they’re outdated and stored down there as out of circulation or whatever and waiting to be destroyed.”
Johan thought about that and shrugged. “That would be good to know. I didn’t see anything on the boxes, like labels or expiration dates, but I didn’t look that close at all sides of every box.”
“We’ll probably have to open up some of the cases to see expiration dates on the bottles,” Joy said, “because, in reality, that stuff could have been there for a long time.”
“As in years or decades?”
“If that part of the building isn’t used, it’s hard to say,” she said. “So who would have access to it is what we need to know.”
“I can talk to Edward when we go back tomorrow morning,” Johan said. “He came in and reamed us out pretty good because I was talking to the shipping foreman.”