Johan's Joy (Heroes for Hire #22) - Dale Mayer Page 0,37

log-ins. Things they might do on a regular basis at work become something they don’t want to take a chance on now. Not that they have any illegal motivation, just that it’s not the best practices and probably against corporate policy, and they don’t want to get caught.” Joy sighed. “So what do we do from here?” she asked. “It’s not just about theft. If you think that Chelsea died because of her job, then this is about murder.”

“Yes,” Kai said gently. “But how widespread is this? We don’t want to cut off one head while the main part of the body is gloating beneath us.”

Joy wrinkled up her nose at that thought. “Okay, that sounds pretty ugly. So what do we have to do in order to make sure that we get all of it?”

“It’ll take time,” Johan said. “It will be a few days before we can get to the bottom of this.”

“I hope you’re right about that,” she said. “I hadn’t really planned on quitting my job just now, but obviously I no longer have a choice.”

Kai nodded slowly. “And that’s one of the reasons why I was hoping maybe we could get you to quit earlier.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “That’s a hard thing to do. I don’t want to leave it right now. We don’t exactly have a reason for it either.”

“Maybe not,” Kai said, “but making the wrong choice now could have a very bad outcome.”

Joy smiled at her friend. “I trust you. I trust all of you. You’ll do your best to keep me safe. And, if you guys can’t do it, so be it. I sure as hell couldn’t do it on my own,” she said with a smile.

*

Joy’s words were something that Johan kept close to his heart as he continued his cyberwork Saturday morning from his hotel room. He was frustrated because every time he thought he’d gotten through to another level of the company’s intranet system, he kept coming up with more blocks.

He turned to Galen as they worked side by side and asked, “How come we’re having so much difficulty getting through everything?”

“I think they’re busy putting up firewalls right now,” Galen said.

“It’s midmorning on a Saturday,” Johan said. “That means a ton of people right now are trying to block our ability to get where we want to go.”

“And you’ve got to wonder why.”

“Maybe someone on the board of directors could be the hacker and whoever’s doing the stealing,” Johan said.

“And it could be an otherwise honest loyal employee who disagrees with what Edward and the board have allowed Barlow to do.”

“That brings up another point. It could be whoever’s against Barlow, Edward, and the company too.”

Galen shook his head. “The hackers are not even really trying to hide their tracks, and, if they’re asked about it, they’ll say that they were asked to boost the security within their company.”

“Are you ready for a field trip?” Johan asked, sitting back.

Galen looked at him, smiled, and nodded. “Always. I’m more than done with being on the computer,” he said.

Johan stood. “Let’s head over and look at the company itself.”

“Have we been given permission?” Galen asked.

Grinning, Johan snapped his laptop closed. “Yeah. Edward refused. He’s still mad about me talking to the shipping foreman. Finally Barlow caved, once Levi had him on the phone.”

“I’ve just been waiting for you,” Galen said, laughing. “Let’s go.” As he logged off his laptop, Galen then asked, “What about Joy? Will you tell her?”

Johan shrugged. “She’ll just want to come along.”

“True enough. I’d suggest you send her a text to make sure she’s doing okay though.”

“Kai stayed overnight,” he said, “and Tyson. I’m sure Joy’s fine.” Nevertheless he grabbed his phone and quickly sent her a text. Heading out to do more intel work. Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.

I’m fine. We’re about to sit down to brunch.

Good enough. I’ll contact you later.

He pocketed his phone, nodded at Galen, and they walked out of their hotel room. They were just ten minutes away from the company.

As they walked in, using their passes on the side door, he noted that the place sounded like a morgue. “Weird how office buildings are so empty on weekends,” he said.

“And yet I wonder how empty this one is.”

They headed to their workspace, hooked up their laptops, and started searching online to see if anybody was around.

“I’m into the security system,” Johan said. “Two cards were accessed at noon, which were ours, and two were accessed this