finished giving his orders, she was asked to take the men back to her office and to show them exactly what they were doing. She frowned at that and said, “I don’t have an office to myself, and the addition of two more people will undoubtedly disturb the other two women.”
Edward looked at her in surprise, then to her boss.
James frowned and shuffled papers awkwardly on his desk and said, “Other offices are on that level, so I guess we could move you two investigators to one of those for the duration of this process.” He looked from the two men to Edward. “How long is this likely to take?”
“No clue,” Edward said.
The first man, Johan, spoke up. “With any luck, just one week.”
Her boss nodded, seemingly a little more relaxed at that. “Well, a week would not be too bad then,” he said. “We obviously want to keep the disruption down to as little as possible.”
“Whatever that means,” Galen, the other man, murmured. But his gaze was intense and watchful, almost as if he were recording everything going on around him.
She wasn’t sure what to think of them. Both men had very fair blond hair, heartily tanned skin, and prominent cheekbones with strong noses. There was just something about them. They weren’t fools, but she highly doubted they were inventory process investigators though. They looked a whole lot more like thugs, the presentable kind. Then she laughed at her own musings. As soon as her laughter crept out, she immediately gulped it back, realizing how inappropriate it was.
Smiling, she got to her feet and said, “Well, we could either move the other two women out to have the men in my office, or you can put me and the investigators in another separate area. Or, you could give these guys an office near mine, and I can work there with them as needed,” she said, speaking gently.
Edward nodded. “You know what? I like that last bit best because the investigators will need privacy too,” he said. He looked at her boss and said, “Make it happen, James.” And, with that, the same gale-force wind that blew him in now blew him right back out again.
The two men stood at the doorway and eyed James, never giving him a chance to back down from the orders that had been given him.
James shook his head and said, “In that case, I guess we’ll set you up in an office.” He rose, looked at Joy, and asked, “What about the office beside yours? Is that one empty?”
“I don’t know,” she said. To say yes would imply that she’d gone in and checked it out, which wasn’t in the scope of anybody who had just started a new job. Sure, she’d been there for maybe six weeks now, but it was hardly appropriate for her to search for empty rooms.
He sighed and said, “Come on then. I’ll have to get IT to give you computers.”
“We have our own laptops,” Johan said, his tone calm, yet brusque.
James frowned at that. “We do have heavy security here.”
“Obviously,” Galen said, as if James had no clue how much security they had or what and how much these men knew about it.
It was an odd conversation, but James was obviously the loser every time he opened his mouth. She didn’t want to be happy about it, but she kind of was because he hadn’t taken anything she’d said seriously, and that really bothered her. How could he be so dismissive when a case of missing ketamine could be all kinds of major bad news? But now she had to fall in line as they all left James’s office. She studied her boss’s rigid back as he strode down the hallway. Whatever was going on was something he hadn’t expected, and he was obviously not impressed by having something pulled over on him.
As far as Edward went, Joy liked him. He had made things happen, and that was good.
James took them all down the elevator to her floor, and then they walked to her corner of the building, passing many closed doors, basically a series of small rooms, one after the other.
After opening several doors, James nodded and said, “This one’s got a double desk. No windows though,” he said, with an airy wave of his hand, as if to say they didn’t need one anyway.
“That’ll be fine,” Johan said.
James nodded. “Good then.” He stopped, looked at the two men, and said, “You need anything else?”
“I’m sure we