Johan's Joy (Heroes for Hire #22) - Dale Mayer Page 0,8
off you first to run very fast.”
Johan snorted. “Seriously? I think she just decided both of us were enough to scare her.”
“Not sure scare is the right word, but she’s definitely afraid she got into something that’s bigger than what she initially thought.”
“Good instincts,” he said. “Particularly after Ice found out through one of her cop friends that they had suspicions of some drugs being moved here. So she added some suspicions of her own. She suspects the cops will tell us to back off on the ketamine investigation.”
“Yeah, but why would they pin it on this place?”
“Because somebody else contacted the cops a few months ago about missing drugs. From this very building.”
“Wow,” Galen said. “You didn’t tell me that part.”
“It just came by email as we walked in.”
“So, what happened to that person?”
“Her name’s Chelsea. I don’t know yet. We’re looking into it,” Johan said in a solemn voice.
“Maybe Joy is on to something then,” Galen said. “I had wondered if Ice had assigned us this project as busywork to keep us around town.”
“I figured we’d check this out, and, if nothing was here, we’d go make ourselves useful helping the others on the African art thefts.”
“I didn’t realize when she said the two cases were close together in town that she really meant side by side. Or back to back is more accurate here.”
“I know,” Johan said, wandering around the small space that was their office for a week or so. “We’ve got this massive research facility down the block, and at the end of the block is the back end of the museum. The front of the museum opens onto one of the main city streets and has a huge cultural district area set before it. But the back end of it sure isn’t very far away from us here.”
“Connection?” Galen mused.
“Well, it’s hard not to see the potential for a connection,” Johan replied. “But that doesn’t mean it’s the one we’re thinking of. It could be anything. And it could be nothing.”
“Well, let’s get to work here and see if we can come up with anything useful.”
Just then came a knock on the door, and a tall skinny kid with wire frame glasses poked his head in. He wore Casual Friday attire, even on Mondays, it seemed. Johan noted his security pass affixed to his T-shirt pocket, yet the outer flap on his pocket protector hid most of his photo and his name. Not good security measures, Johan thought.
“Hey, I’m from IT. I heard I’m supposed to hook you two up.”
“Who did that come from?” Johan was testing the kid, just to be sure.
He laughed. “I got three requests, but all were the same. Edward sent me an email. James just tagged me in the hallway, and Joy called me.”
“Sounds good,” Johan said. “We need access to all the inventory management systems.”
He looked at him in surprise. “Is that all you need?”
“Not necessarily. What did Edward say to give us access to?”
The young man took a deep breath. “He said basically everything.”
“Good enough,” Johan said. “That’s what we need then.”
“Where are your laptops?” They pulled them out, and the IT guy quickly sat them down side by side and set them both up for access to the network. “Now you guys realize an awful lot of very sensitive information is here, correct?”
“Got it,” both men said smoothly.
The IT guy hesitated, and they just looked at him with blank faces. He sighed. “I get that an investigation is going on, but I want to make sure that everything stays secure. That’s my job, and, if things go off the rails, I’m the one who’ll get blamed for it.”
“Good point,” Johan said. “A very good point.”
“So what’s the deal then?”
“No deal,” Johan said. “If we run into any trouble, we’ll give you a shout.”
After that obvious dismissal, the young man hesitated, then nodded and left.
“Did you catch his name?” Galen asked.
“I don’t know for sure,” Johan said, “but, when he entered into the admin system, he used the name Pedro.”
“Good enough,” Galen said. Sitting down, he looked at the inventory management area on the screen and said, “You got any clue how to proceed?”
“Hell no,” Johan said. “But I guess it’s like the way we do our inventory. We go into the room and count.”
“Yeah, but that’s just an excuse for us to play, because our inventory is guns, ammo, grenades, and anything else in the line of toys that we might have stockpiled. Hell, we all