Office Play: Freaky Geek Series (16 page)

“What?”

“When did this disappearing office supplies start?”

Adam twisted his mouth. “Hmm, I would say it got real bad a few months ago. But now that I think about it. Little things have been disappearing for at least a year.” Just then Adam quickly got out of bed. Jeanette tipped over in the bed and fell in the empty space where he was.

“What is it?” she asked, as she watched him looking through his briefcase.

“I just remembered something. We had issues here and there, but really paid no attention to it.”

“Paid no attention!” This time it was Jeanette who jumped out of the bed.

“Not really ‘not’ paid attention, but dismissed it to someone forgot to write down the right number or something. But now that you mentioned it, it could have started a long time ago.”

“You mean like someone testing the waters to see how much they could get away with, before they went for the big time something.”

“Exactly.”

Jeanette sat on the nearby chair as she watched Adam tear through his briefcase. She should have thought of that from the get go. But the way Sam explained it, it just started happening. Well, it got so bad that they finally noticed, but whoever or
whatever,
could have been testing the waters like she said.

“Ah, here it is!”

Jeanette got up and went to his side. “What have you got?”

“This was an order me and my team put through ten months ago. Some of the stuff we had to re-order, but that’s because we thought we wrote down the wrong product number.”

“Was it kicked back in the system or something?”

Adam looked over the purchase order. “It says back-order.” Adam threw down the paper as though he was totally disgusted.

“What’s wrong now?”

“We need to look over every purchase order from at least a year ago. If I remember correctly we had a lot of back-order items, but didn’t think anything of it cause we got them later. But now with the original orders floating out there somewhere…..”

“Hmm. It’s like the first order was for whoever, then they threw in the second one so no concerns would come up. If you got your order, then no problem. Okay, then, let’s get cracking on this. We’re not going out anyway.” Jeanette headed to the bathroom to freshen up. “Could you order lunch?” She hollered.

“No prob.”

After thirty minuets, Jeanette re-entered the room. Adam was together too. He had on a loose fitting shirt and jeans. He had on his glasses and he was studying the purchases orders intently. Even this casual and a bit geeky, he was still sexy.

“You see anything?” She stood looking over his shoulder.

“Yeah, I see a lot.” Adam turned around in his chair. “I’m gonna give you half of these. I’m so glad I went with my first mind and brought these with me. Highlight everything that says ‘back-ordered’.”

“Cool.”

Adam came over to her and kissed her on the cheek. “Mmmm. If we’re not careful, not only will we solve this early, we might have something else to announce to the home office when we get back.”

Jeanette’s toes curled in her fuzzy slippers.

Chapter Nineteen

Jeanette took out her glasses and her proverbial thinking cap. Adam looked like he was on to something.

If this started happening a year ago, they had a long road to go. “We have to pin point the exact time started. I wonder if they used a dummy account then.”

Adam sighed, took off his glasses and rubbed his eye. “If they did it’s not going to make our job any easier. Hopefully we’ll get a break.”

Jeanette made sure she sat on the opposite end of the room. After that kiss and Adam purring in her ear, she was hard pressed to keep her legs together. She was glad however, that he noticed this new piece of information. Maybe now he can keep his mind on work, and hands to himself.

Not that she was complaining about those hands. But there was a time and place for everything and right now, wasn’t the time. However this was Paris, so technically it was the right place.

She mentally sighed. Why did things have to be so complicated?

“Here’s something!”

Jeanette got up and trotted over to him. “Watcha got?”

“Look at this.” He circled something in red ink. “This dummy account is different from these.” He took out the more recent purchase orders. “See.”

“Hmm. Does this meant that these aren’t related.”

“Don’t know. Or does it mean, once we started looking at these orders more closely they changed up things.”

“Let’s see what office they originated from.” Jeanette took the papers and looked at them more closely. “Look at this!”

“What?”

Adam got up and stood real close to her. The smell of his cologne was making her weak again. Damn what this man did to her. She didn’t know how any woman at the job could get any work done when he stood near them.

“This originated from the Dallas office.”

“Damn!”

“Are these happening in
all
your offices?” Jeanette asked, looking up at him.

“Man, I hope not. I wanted this to be contained at least to the two offices, L.A. and Paris.”

Jeanette sat down hard on the edge of the bed. If this is happening all over the place, then they really had their work cut out for them. “We need to narrow this down now. How many offices did you guys have, I forgot?”

“We have fourteen, including the one here.”

Jeanette sighed. “Looks like we’re going to have to go through these with a fine tooth comb, and at least twice.”

“We’ll be eating in all day today.” Adam turned to her. “I would rather do other things than look over a bunch of papers. I mean it’s pouring, it’s dark and cloudy and it’s Paris!”

Jeanette was with him on this—in her head. But they needed to get on this. She figured out in her head that the company lost a little over a quarter of million dollars. And that was before this recent find!

Something in the universe was messing with her. Adam was right. Here they were in the most romantic city in the world with the perfect type of weather. And what were they going to spend the day doing? Looking over dull, dry purchase orders.

Then again, she kept telling Adam that they needed to slow down. They started off too fast and heavy, so this was a perfect situation to put the breaks on everything.

So why did she feel so crappy?

She went over and grabbed another stack of papers. She sat on the floor, but near Adam who was still sitting in the chair. “Hey, I know this is getting ahead of myself, but do you know how you’re going to prosecute?” Jeanette asked.

“That’s for the company to decide. But I believe this falls under embezzlement, grand theft,
and fraud. But we still don’t know if it’s a person or a compu—”

“Wait! That’s it!”

Adam looked down at her startled. “You found something?”

“No, but I thought of something. Maybe we’re looking at this from the wrong end,” Jeanette jumped up and went to her purse.

“What do you mean?” He joined her as she started throwing things out of her bag.

“Does anyone know where the missing items were shipped?” Jeanette asked, as she pulled out her cell, charger and adapter.

“Well, if we…. you know what? I see where you’re going. If this was a computer glitch, then nothing was really ordered or at the very least sent to another address. And if it was ordered by a human being, the loot has to be somewhere.”

“Right.” Jeanette plugged up her cell. “When this is fully charged I’m gonna call Rene. I have no power and just want it full before I start blabbing.” She laughed.  I want her to do some checking for me. You guys could be paying vendors for nothing thinking these are double orders. And hell, they might not say anything.”

“How is Renee going to help? She doesn’t work for the company.” Adam asked.

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? She’s a private investigator.”

***

Wow. This family was more interesting than he thought. A female private investigator. How sexy, and Jeannette was a financial investigator. Made sense now. Just then Adam got a thought.

“You know. If this thing is actually caused by an employee, it could get ugly.”

Jeanette nodded, while still looking at her cell.

“Maybe we can do a little moonlighting.”

Jeanette turned to face him with a puzzled look on her face. “Huh?”

“Well, you and Renee got the investigation gene. I have access to the computer equipment….”

“Ohhh. I see. You think we should do a little sideline thingy.”

“Exactly. We first start and see if any of these things were actually ordered and not some phantom phenomenon.”

“You would think it would be easy from there.” Jeanette surmised. “I mean we just ask, were these items ordered, and if the vendor says yes, then we ask where they shipped, and boom, they give us an address.”

“Ha. But as you can see, nothing is that cut and dry.” Adam gathered up the purchase orders he was looking at. “Monday back at the office, I want you to sit with the art department.”

“Why the art department?”

“I’m looking at these directly from the office here. It looks like a lot of art supplies. Stencils, white boards, paints, and such were ordered from here. This person can become another Van Gough.”

“Hmm. How about the other items, like back in the States?”

“Those were a variety of items. Everything from fancy writing pens to computer servers. But these…” He shook the papers in front of her. “These seem to be more specialized…oh look here.”

“What is it?” Jeanette looked closely at the paper. “Wow.”

Adam shook his head. Fifteen laptops and very expensive graphic design software was ordered. “This is crazy. This has to be a person.”

“Looks like it.” Jeanette put her hands on her hips and shook her head. “You know what it looks like?”

“What?”

“Someone is trying to open up their own advertising agency or graphic design studio.”

Adam nodded. It did look like all these orders were pointing in that direction. Now the only thing they needed to find out was who had those kinds of aspirations. That was going to be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

He was glad however that he suggested that they look for the culprits on their own—from the outside. This required some unorthodox investigation.

“I’ll call my brother when I know I can reach him. How about you? Is Renee on an important case or something?”

“Nah. In fact, she’s off for a while, that’s why we’ve been able to hang out for lunch and go to the movies. What time is it?” Jeanette went over to the clock sitting on the bedsides table. “Hmm it’s eleven thirty in the morning here, so it’s two thirty in the morning in Los Angeles. Better not call now, Renee is not in the best of mood when awakened.”

Adam laughed. “Complete opposite from my brother. In fact, he’s probable at a club. I’ll text him however.”

Adam grabbed his cell and found his brother Noah’s number. He then texted him:

Call me immediately when you have a chance. I need your help with something
. “Okay, until he texts me back all we can do is wait. “Want a big lunch?”

“Oh yes. Make sure there is some good hot chocolate there.”

“Sounds good.”

Adam called in the order, and made sure they had plenty of hot chocolate. After he ordered he joined Jeanette on the edge of the bed. Then he thought of something.

He got up and walked toward the door.

“What is it? They can’t be here already,” Jeanette said.

“No. But I thought I would put this up.” He held up the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign.

“Oh.”

“Don’t over think it. I just want to make sure we have some uninterrupted time while we go over this. We only have a few more days here.”

“Oh yeah, sure.”

Adam looked over at the clock. It was going on twelve o’clock. The day was still young and the possibilities were endless.

He just hoped he didn’t screw it up again.

Chapter Twenty

Adam managed to get Jeanette to sit next to him on the huge chair in the corner of the room near the fireplace. She didn’t protest, in fact she was grateful that she was near the fire.

“My hands and fingers are drying out, I’ve touched so much paper,” Jeanette complained.

“I think I have something for that,” Adam said, getting up. Immediately he felt cold. Sitting next to her, feeling the warm softness of her body and coupled with the fireplace, was soothing and comforting.

“Whatcha got?”

“I carry hand lotion, since my hands are always inside a computer and dealing with parts.” He searched his case and found it. “Here we go. Hope you don’t mind smelling like musk and woods.” He chuckled.

“Not at all, as long as it moisturizes.” Jeanette cupped her hands as he squirted some lotion in them. “Oh, thick.”

“Here, let me do that. Adam put down the tube and took her hands into his. “I can rub it in better.”

He rubbed her hands slowly, looking into Jeanette’s eyes. They were dark and dilated. He could make his move now, but decided he would take things slow and carefully. She was more comfortable around him—alone, and he didn’t want to spook her into shutting him off.

He took his seat next to her again, but never did he stop massaging her hands. “Feels good?”

“Huh?”

“I asked if your hands are feeling better now.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah.” She quickly removed her hands from his and went back to the papers. “Thanks so much.”

Instead of saying something, he too went back to his papers. This was going to be a slow process, but he knew it would be well worth the wait.

After about ten minutes, there was a knock on the door.

“Service de Chambre!”

“Oh goodie, food,” Jeanette said, jumping off the chair, nearly knocking Adam to the floor.

“I take it we are really hungry,” Adam smirked.

“Just a little.” Jeanette said, from the bathroom.

Adam opened the door and allowed room service in. He watched him as he meticulously set up the table, and carefully placed the food down. It was as though the man was creating a masterpiece.

When he was done, Adam had to admit it looked like a work of art.

“Quoi que ce soit d'autre?”

“Uh…no. Here you go.” He tipped the man and he left. “Looks good!” he hollered to Jeanette.

“Coming, just needed to wash my hands.” She came bouncing back into the room.

“Yeah, I need to do that too. Don’t start without me.” Adam went to his bathroom. He decided besides cleaning up, to shave and put on some cologne.

He noticed that Jeanette loved getting close to him—on the sly and smelling him. She must love his cologne and had a tendency to stay close to him longer when he wore it.

He would do whatever it takes.

He re-entered the room and saw Jeanette sitting at he table, almost drooling over the food.

“Looks good huh?”

“Never a bad meal with French cuisine.” She patted the chair next to her. “Come on, hurry up and sit down, I’m starved.”

“Right with you. What do we have here?”

“Let’s see. Mmm. Nothing like breakfast food for lunch. Crepe with salted butter, Belgian waffles, eggs with black truffles and this looks like Chocolat Chaud. Wow, you ordered the kitchen,” Jeanette laughed.

“Hey, you said you wanted a huge lunch. Wait till dinner. I’m really going all out.”

She giggled the cutest girly giggle. He wanted to lean over and kiss her right then. But he held back.

He was doing good. He wanted to pat himself on the back. But at the same time he wanted to kick himself. His brother would be laughing at him at the moment. Adam, the ladies man being a gentleman.

But he’s never been with a lady like Jeanette Foster.

He leaned over and picked up the top of a platter. “Hmm. The bellboy didn’t show me this. Hey! Chocolate covered strawberries.”

“Mmm. My fav.”

Adam turned to her. “Really? Well, let’s save these for later.” He took the platter and took them to the little fridge in the corner of the room. He then came back and started digging in. “I think once we get a full stomach, we can think more clearly on this.”

“I agree.”

They continued eating, commenting on the food with almost every bite. By the time they were finished an hour had past.

“Still too early to contact Renee,” Jeanette said.

“Really? It’s five in the morning in Los Angeles now.”

“You don’t know Renee on her days off. I’ll call her in an hour.”

As if on cue, Adam’s cell vibrated. “Must be Noah.” He looked at the screen. “Yep”

“He says what’s going on. Let me call him and fill him in. Are you sure you want to do this, remember we’re on our own going this route.”

“I’m in. We have to stop this or this agency could go bankrupt.”

Adam punched the speed dial and waited.

“Hey bro.”

“Hey, glad you’re coherent enough to talk.”

“Ha, ha. What’s the urgency?”

Adam filled him in from the beginning. He started with when they first noticed the missing items, then the dummy numbers, then what they thought were the origins of the mess up. Rehashed how they determined it started earlier than they thought and looked like someone is setting up a competing shop somewhere.

Noah let out a low whistle. “Man, that’s some crazy shit.”

“Tell me about. So I’m here at our Paris office, with our auditor trying to find out something on this end.”

There was a long silence on the other end of the phone. “Hello?”

“Is it that lady auditor that you said was the finest thing you ever seen on the planet?”

“Uh…yeah. So, when are you going to start looking in on this?” Adam asked quickly.

“Ahh, she’s in the room isn’t she?”

“Yes.” He wished Noah would move on to another subject, cause he knew his face was bright red now. He could feel the heat.

“Okay, okay. I’ll leave you alone.”

“Good. I might have you get in touch with someone. It’s Jeanette’s cousin, she’s a P.I.”

“Wow, this is serious.”

“It just so happens that she’s a P.I.. Jeanette is nice enough to ask her for her services. But this is what we need to do.”

Adam went over what he and Jeanette discussed earlier.

“Okay. Cool. I’ll wait for her call and we’ll take it from there.”

“Thanks, bye.”

Adam put away his cell and went over to Jeanette who was now looking over some paperwork.

“I’m going to call Renee now and let her know what’s going on. You sure I can give her your  brother’s number?”

“No prob, he’s waiting for her call.”

“Great. Wow, little did I know this job would get this deep.”

***

Jeanette was so relieved that this was moving forward now. They were getting heavily involved with no mention of romance or any physical contact.

Well, there was some physical contact earlier this morning, and that was all she could handle at the moment.

The way Adam massaged her hands with that lotion too was short of pornographic.

Who ever heard of getting wet just by a hand massage? And he was only massaging her hands, no other body parts! Damn!

Jeanette speed dialed Renee’s number. She picked up on the third ring.

“Hello there!”

“Wow you sound perky for it to be so early,” Jeanette said.

“Details, details.”

“Huh?”

“You are with that fine-ass man in the city of romance.”

Jeanette sighed. It figures. Renee the hopeless romantic. “Girl, listen I got a job for you.”

“You want me to investigate homeboy for you?”

“No!” Jeanette looked over at Adam. Luckily he had his head buried in some paperwork. She took the phone to the bathroom. “Look, this is about work.”

She explained everything to her as Adam did to Noah.

“Oooh. Girl, sounds like embezzlement all away around. Okay, I’ll get on it. Now, this Noah person is Adam’s brother, you said he worked there before.”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. That’s good, we can figure out someway for him to contact these people again. Alright, give up the number and let me call him. Then I’ll get back with you.”

“Thanks, I really appreciate this.”

“Hey, gives me something more interesting to do.”

             
“Your job is already interesting,” Jeanette said.

“It’s the same ole’ same ole. Chasing down cheating spouses, investigating potential mates. Nothing really that exciting anymore.”

“Wow. Didn’t know business was that repetitive.”

Renee chuckled. “It pays the rent.”

“Here’s Noah’s number, he’s expecting your call. You both have the lowdown on what’s going on. I guess you two can get a plan together. Call us back as soon as you figure out something.”

“Okay, and don’t you two do anything tomorrow until we call you. What time do you go in?”

Jeanette turned to Adam. “What time do we have to be in the office tomorrow.”

“Eight sharp.”

“I heard him,” Renee said. “Damn! That means eleven at night my time. Let me set my alarm.”

Jeanette chuckled. Poor Renee. She worked crazy hours already and she knew on her days off she hibernated to make up for lost sleep. “I really appreciate this.”

“If you really appreciated it, you would do me a favor and get busy with that hunk of a man you have with you.”

Before Jeanette could say something, she heard a dial tone. That part of the conversation she would keep from Adam, but she relayed the rest.

“So we just sit and wait for instructions. Like a real sting.” Adam said looking up from his work.

“Yeah, something like that,” Jeanette said. She walked over to window. It was still coming down in sheets. “If it keeps raining like this all day and night, we’ll have to get to the office by boat.”

Adam came behind her and put his arms around her waist. “Lets not talk shop today. I want to continue knowing each other.” He bent down and kissed her on top of the head.

“Do you want me to start from my childhood?”

“Not that far back. I want to know the more intimate side of Jeanette Foster.”

“Uh-oh.”

“I’ll share with you, so it will be a fair deal.”

Jeanette wiggled out of his grip and went to sit down by the fireplace. “What do you want to know?”

“Have you ever been married?”

“Wow, right off the bat with a very personal question.”

“Not really. If we plan to pursue a relationship, these are things I need to know anyway.”

Jeanette thought a moment. Yeah, that was fair. And actually she wanted to know about his past relationships—and current ones. This man could not be sleeping alone.

She wanted to definitely find out about any past office romances he had. She’s sure he had a few. She didn’t want to be the next subject of office gossip.

“Well, if you must know, I was married once. Divorced after five years.

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Actually it was a mutual agreement. In fact, we’re great friends, we just made lousy spouses.” She giggled. You now, it was one of those ‘I married my best friend’. But I think we really needed to remain best friends.”

“Ahh. Well that’s good to hear. Tells me a lot about you right there.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. You’re not bitter or still mourning over a relationship.”

“No sense in doing that. I feel I can always find someone else, so I moved on.”

“You can teach a lot of younger women your attitude. And I bet you can find someone else. You got me hooked.”

Jeanette turned a looked at Adam. “Honestly.”

“No, I mean it. Look, I know we started out fast and furious, but now is the time to go at a leisurely pace and get reacquainted. And I don’t mind saying that you’re the type of woman that can hook any man quickly.”

“How so? I don’t play games.”

“Exactly!”

“Please. Elaborate.” Jeanette scooted up on her bed and placed the huge fluffy pillows behind her back. She got comfortable waiting to hear this new line.

“To start, you’re a very intelligent woman. You’re efficient, no-nonsense and speak your mind. You don’t hint or beat around the bush for something you want, you come right out and say it.”

“This is true. But doesn’t that usually intimidate a man?”

“Not the right man nor a man that knows himself.”

Jeanette cocked her head and nodded. She could understand that. “What else?”

Adam come to the bed and sat next to her on the edge. “You’re the whole package, a real woman. A man that’s ready for a true honest relationship wouldn’t be intimidated by you.”