“I hope you take it. I love working with you, and not just for obvious reasons.”
“I enjoy working with you too. I have to think about it. Right now I need to focus on this. We have some big days ahead of us.” Jeanette sighed.
“Got that right.”
Jeanette went back to work looking over purchases orders and trying to think of anyone in the Paris office that could be in cahoots with Laura and her minions. She went employee by employee in her head, then….
“Henry!”
Jeanette called Sam’s. Office. “Yeah, Jeanette.”
“Get Adam on conference.”
After about a minute, “Hello.”
“Adam, I know who the person is in Paris.”
“Oooh, who,” Sam squealed.
“Henry, that Henry…Otter or something.”
“Henry Ottman? Adam yelled. “He was transferred from the Dallas office as a bonus!”
“I can’t believe that. Are you sure?” Sam asked.
“I’m positive. I’ve been doing this long enough to know shady people, and I had a gut feeling when he saw me at purchasing and kinda questioned me being there.”
“That’s right, he said that he was seeing a lot of you there,” Adam said.
“Yep. I thought that was weird to say, and he kinda said it with some cynicism,” Jeanette said, looking for a particular purchase order. “Here we go. This is one of the purchase orders I copied. I think he took it.” She looked for the employee code. “Yep. Let me read you the items and tell me if you see a dupe.”
“Shoot,” Adam said.
“Three laptops, one server, three mega graphics software, four five inch, D-ring binders.”
Jeanette waited a moment. She could hear Adam typing away in the background.
“Found it! It’s a dupe and it says it went to Alaska.”
“But we know it’s not really going there, it’s online being auctioned off,” Sam said.
“No it’s going there. Someone has physical possession of the merchandise, they’re just not keeping it long,” Adam said.
“Exactly. Miriam, Laura and Henry probably thought that no one would look at Alaska, since it’s like the Western Front.” Jeanette giggled in spite of herself.
“Okay, let me stalk my order I put in earlier. When are we all going to get together for the big stuff?” Adam asked.
“This weekend. Sam, do you mind coming over to my place?”
“Of course not. In fact, I’ll bring pizza.”
Jeanette walked into Adam’s office; it was quitting time. She closed the door behind her and sat down. “I still feel like I need some sleep,” Jeanette said, yawing. “Sorry.”
“You’re been on go ever since you started here. Plus our extracurricular activities,” Adam said winking at her.
Jeanette’s face flushed.
Adam walked around her desk and sat on the edge of it in front of her. “I can’t wait until this assignment is over. Then we can take those days off and really work on our relationship.”
“I think that’s what Sam had in mind when she mentioned it to me,” Jeanette said.
“Good ole’ Sam.”
Jeanette chuckled. “Yeah, I guess she’s Team Jeanette/Adam.”
“You know what?”
“What?”
“I am too.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Jeanette was getting her house together, making sure it was presentable. This was the first full day that she had—and she was wide awake. The gang was coming over. That included Doug. He was a top notch investigator when it came to big time stolen merchandise. Like private jets. So his ears really perked up when she first told him about her dilemma. And he was more than happy to help.
The doorbell rang. She checked her watch. Someone was early.
She went to the door. It was Adam.
“Hello gorgeous.” He bent down and kissed her on the cheek. “May I come in?”
Jeanette first just stood there. Looking at the beautiful creature named Adam. He was dressed in jeans, a simple sweater and loafers. And he still gave the appearance of a male runway model. Not fair. “Sure. Come on in.”
“Meow!”
“This is Oscar.”
“Hello Oscar,” Adam said, bending down. Friendly cat?”
“He’s picky about his friends.”
As if the cat wanted to make her out as a liar, he jumped on Adams legs and purred.
“Traitor.”
Adam laughed. He stood up with the cat in his arms and finished walking into the house. “I know I’m early, but I wanted some alone time with you. At least enough to see your place.”
“No problem. After you put down your new friend, I’ll give you the grand tour,” Jeanette said, pointing to Oscar in his arms.
Adam put Oscar down, and he ran to his kitty condo. Jeanette sat her duster down. “Okay this is the living room, obviously. And the kitchen is through that swinging door. As you can see, I’m not into the open concept.”
Adam laughed.
“And if you walk down here….” they moved towards a long hallway, then turned. “…is my formal dinning room.”
“Love the dinning table. French Provincial?”
“Yes.” She took him by the hands and led him to her office/library. “This is where the magic happens. It’s in a little disarray, but I did clean it up this morning so it’s eighty percent there.” She chuckled.
“If fits your personality,” Adam said, walking around the room and looking at her various books. “But I have to disagree.”
“Huh?”
“I thought the magic happens in your bedroom.” He smiled wickedly.
“Adam.”
The doorbell rang, and the two went to her door. It was Doug.
“Hey lady.” He came in and hugged her. “How are you?”
“Great, come in. I want to meet someone. “This is my boyfriend and co-worker Adam. He’s been helping me with this whole situation.”
“Great, we need all the help we can get on this. Glad to meet you.” He stuck out his hand. She noticed Adam was looking a bit pensive at first, but seemed to relax after she introduced him as her boyfriend.
“Where’s the rest of the crew?” Doug asked.
The doorbell rang again.
“That should be them.” Sure enough Renee, Noah and Sam where at the door. Sam was carrying several boxes of pizza.
“Hello,” Renee said. “Ready to get down to business.”
“I’ll say. Come on in folks. The rest of the gang is here. Sam let me show you to the kitchen where you can put those.”
“Thanks.”
***
Adam watched as everyone interacted with each other. But he was more interested in Doug. He seemed a bit too friendly at first. But the fact that Jeanette introduced him to Doug as her boyfriend didn’t leave him.
“So, you’re Jeanette’s new beau?” Doug said, coming towards him.”
That’s what she said damit, Adam thought.
“Good. Glad to see her dating since her divorce. She’s been sort of a workaholic and homebody.”
“And he’s a huge upgrade, from ex-hubby,” Renee said, coming behind him and grinning.
Adam felt honored and uncomfortable at the same time.
“Okay guys, let’s get started,” Sam said, coming into the room with Jeanette. “We don’t want to waste anymore time on this, especially since word in the office is that you two have really been investigating this.”
“Step into my office,” Jeanette said, waving her hands toward her room.
They all gathered in her office. There was plenty of room where everyone had a seat. Adam made sure he sat next to her. And Noah, followed suit by sitting next to Renee.
“Okay, this is how we’re going to do this,” Doug said, taking out his laptop and typing. “Adam, you’re the IT geek, I got clearance for you from the proper authorities for you to hack and steal…ahem copy their email addresses and passwords of the people in question.
”
“Great.”
“This is pretty straight forward. Once we look at the emails that have been going back and forth between these people, you can hack in and pretend to be them. But first we’ll just give the perp a little virus on their end so they can’t contact the others to let them know what’s going on. Get it?”
“Got it,” Adam said. He knew what he had to do. It wouldn’t be hard at all.
“Now the rest of us, we’re going to be making purchases on those online auction sites. I’ve been looking at the list of stuff that’s gone missing from your company, Samantha, and the stuff on those sites. It’s all there. I’ve totaled up at least sixty thousand dollars worth of merchandise. And it’s constantly being replaced once stuff sells.”
“This is crazy,” Sam said, shaking her head.
“Don’t worry, we’re that close to catching them,” Renee said, as she put her forefinger and thumb together.
“Yeah, this should take no more than a few days, a week at the most. The main thing we don’t want to screw up, is the car sales. Online auction purchases are basically anonymous. They’re just going by the info you provide. You could use a postal stop as long as there is a street address in most cases. But these people have been in contact with people that want to buy your company cars,” Doug said, placing his laptop down and getting up.
“Where are the cars going?” Jeanette asked.
“Saudi Arabia, China.” This is pretty common. It’s a sophisticated theft too. I didn’t know you had people in your company that could pull that off. Not saying they’re dummies, but one doesn’t just wake up in the morning and say, I’m gonna sell cars on the black-market.” Doug mused.
“They’ve had plenty of time to practice I guess, Sam said. “And I’m not even going to say because of a woman scorned. I think they saw they could get away with something and they just kept doing it. Trying to make it look like Adam and his crew is just convenient.”
“Well, we’re about to show them that they can’t get away with it. Adam, you and I need to get cracking. You guys, I’m getting your online auction accounts with verified addresses. Once I do that, I can go in and make it look like you’re long time members.”
Everyone got up and stretched, then headed to the kitchen for pizza. Adam sat with Doug as they put their part of the plan in action.
“So I take it from Jeanette you know your way around a software program or two.” Doug typed frantically on his laptop.
“Yep. But I don’t do that regularly, I just did this time, I’m not a hacker or anything,” Adam said. He felt like he needed to justify his action. He knew Jeanette worked with this guy during her stint looking into mafia wrong doings. He didn’t want to give off the impression that he did this just for fun.
“I understand. It needed to be done and we’re glad you were able to do it. But from now on you’ll be under the watchful eye of the Feds. So when this goes to court, we’ll have your back. I think these creeps were smart enough not to use company equipment for most of their deeds. Letting people bring their personal laptop was a godsend to them. You might want to change that policy.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Now, even though you might know how to hijack an email account, just so it’s a official, I’m going to walk you through and get you started,” Doug said, as his fingers flew over his keyboard. “They have three contacts for the cars. All are overseas.”
“So this is definitely a sophisticated black-market deal.” Adam said.
“Most definitely. I think there is one mastermind for this part of the embezzlement. The online auction stuff anyone can do, but this….the cars, you need contacts.”
“Wow. I would never have guessed anyone of my co-workers would get into this,” Adam said, scratching the back of his head.
“The lure of big money does it every time. Okay, read these emails between your co-worker and these buyers,” Doug said, turning the laptop to him.
Adam looked at the email exchanges. Doug was right; this was very sophisticated. After reading the emails one by one for about twenty minutes, Adam got the gist of the exchanges. “Okay, I’m ready to become one of these guys.”
“Great,” Doug said.
After he typed a few things, he grabbed a piece of paper and handed it to him. Here is your email addy. I will take one of the other two guys. Now let me just give these jokers a virus and we’ll be in business.”
After about ten minutes the other guys email accounts and whatever else they had going was down. “Okay we need to act quickly. They can go to another computer when they see something is wrong. So it’s a matter of you getting to Laura and her bunch before they do,” Doug said.
“So when do I make contact?” Adam asked.
“The last email stated they will get in touch later tomorrow evening. So email them then. Ask for two cars. As soon as that happens I’m sure we’ll see an order for two cars. Just which office will initiate it remains to be seen.” Doug got up with laptop in hand.
“Okay you guys, time to shop on the online auctions for office supplies.”
Jeanette, Sam, Renee and Noah came and sat around Doug. Adam sat in the back and studied his assignment some more. We couldn’t wait to catch these thieves. According to Doug, they were going to go away for a long time too.
“Now, you all have your online auction accounts. As you can see it looks like you’ve been a member for at least six years and you got great star ratings. This is what you need to do. The addresses I have set up and verified are street mailboxes. When you place your orders they will go there. Of course those boxes belong to the Feds.”
“How should we order?” Jeanette asked.”
“Spread it out, not all at once. You order some things today. Renee can order in a couple of days and Noah can order some things over the weekend. Order several items, but make sure at least one of those items are high end, like a laptop that can support heavy graphics or software.”
They all nodded.
“I looked over this one car transaction,” Adam said. “It’s one of the Benzes.”
“Damn!” Sam said. “Who knows how many cars are overseas.”
“From what I’ve seen, at least fourteen,” Jeanette said.
“And no one was the wiser,” Renee said, shaking her head.
“Don’t worry, by next week this time, they will be facing a judge,” Doug said, closing his laptop. “Okay we all have our assignments, lets get to work.”
Everyone got up and headed to the kitchen again. The pizza was good. Adam went over to Jeanette and placed his hand on the small of her back.
“I’ll be glad when this is over. I haven’t even seen your bedroom yet.” He winked.
“Me too.” Jeanette said, taking his hand in hers.
“But you know what?” Adam asked, whispering in her ear. “That never stopped us before. I mean who needs a bed to make love?”
Jeanette looked up at him wild eyed.
Later that evening Jeanette made her first online auction purchase. It was for a box of binders, brochure covers, and a laptop. Fifteen minuets later she got confirmation that she would be getting them in three business days.
“What did you order from Laura again, Adam?” Sam asked.
He went over the detailed list.”
“Give it a couple of days and we’ll see it on the auction. Noah, you can order half that stuff, Renee the other half. Those things we will definitely need to help our case. They’re recent.”
“We’ll keep an eye out for them. We don’t want anyone else getting them,” Renee said.
“That means all of us have to be vigilant. The first one to see them up, order or let Sam and the others know you saw them so they can order,” Doug said, pointing Adam and Jeanette.
“Looks like we have some long days and nights ahead of us,” Jeanette said, patting Adam on the arm.
“But just think, after this is over you and Adam can really get into each other,” Sam said, smilin
g at the both of them.
Adam smiled even harder.
Chapter Thirty-Five
It was the next working week. Jeanette was sitting in her office looking at the online store that sold all their stolen items. The stuff Adam ordered hadn’t come up yet. But it was just a matter of time.
Adam was to contact Henry. They figured out he was the mastermind behind the black market cars.
Jeanette came into Adams office.
“So, when are you to make the first contact?”
Adam checked his watch. “In a few minutes. Since I’m suppose to be over seas, the timing is prefect since the last thing the buyer said he’ll contact them in the evening his time.”
“Are you going to do it here?”
“Nah, Doug is meeting me at the Bread Basket. We’re eating there too. Want to join us?”
“Oh yeah, love their food. And while you’re doing that I can still be checking for those items. Last night Renee called and told me she ordered some things. Not your items though. Can you believe this?”
Adam shook his head. “It’s surreal. A black-market setup under our nose.”
“This is more intriguing than any of the mafia cases I’ve been on,” Jeanette said, wringing her hands.
“How so?” Adam asked, looking skeptical.
“Let’s face it. You expect stuff like this from the known criminal element. But normal nine to five people.” She shook her head. “Something all together different.”
“You got a point,” Adam looked at his watch. “It’s time. Leave about five minutes after me so we don’t attract any attention. Meet us there.”
“Will do.”
Jeanette arrived at the Bread Basket. Doug and Adam where in the back, in the corer in a booth.
“Boy, you two want to make sure you were really incognito.” Jeanette chuckled.
“Just like old times,” Doug said, patting her on the arm. “Adam is in the middle of the transaction.”
Jeanette’s eyes grew wide. “You mean he’s talking to Henry now about the cars?”
“Yep. The buyer’s name is Carmine. So Adam is now him.”
Jeanette went over to the other side of Adam and watched him type. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Henry was describing the cars in question. He also told the ‘buyer’, Carmine what needed to be done before he shipped.
Office Play: Freaky Geek Series Page 25
