Josh Preston lounged back in his chair and contemplated the two women sitting on the other side of his desk. Was one of them the thief?
Back at the start he had assumed he was looking for a techie who had the sophisticated skills required to hack into his system. But every time he thought he’d found a clue to the identity of the embezzler, he’d hit a wall.
Now he was starting to wonder if he had been looking at the wrong people. Laurel Jenner was the head of the marketing team. Kate Delbridge wrote ad copy for the Night Watch website. Neither of them could write code, but they were both smart in ways that mattered in big business.
“I assume that by now you’ve heard about the death of Sandra Porter?” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Laurel said. “HR notified the entire staff this morning. I still can’t believe she was murdered.”
Josh nodded. He had been attracted to Laurel from the start, and not just because she looked like a real-life edition of an over-endowed female superhero character in a video game. The red hair was too bright to be real, but it enhanced her green eyes and catlike face.
He had not hired her for her physical assets, interesting though they were. She was sharp and savvy, and she had an intuitive sense of how to reach potential customers online. She was also as ambitious as he was and willing to work 24/7.
He liked to have driven, ambitious people working for him, but ambition had a dark side.
He realized he was drumming his fingers on the arm of the chair and tapping his foot in a jittery, agitated manner. That wouldn’t have been so bad if he’d had an old-fashioned wooden desk. Laurel and Kate wouldn’t be able to see his foot, in that case. But now he knew they were deliberately trying not to stare.
He should never have allowed the decorator to install a glass-topped desk.
Suddenly he wanted to do the damned handwashing thing. He fought the compulsion with everything he had.
To distract himself, he got to his feet, crossed to the window and pretended to study the view. His office was on the twentieth floor of a high-rise office tower in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood. From where he stood he could still see a portion of Lake Union, but he knew that situation would not last much longer. Office towers and high-rise condos and apartment buildings had been cropping up all across Seattle for the past few years, and there seemed to be no end to the construction.
When he finally sold Night Watch, he would have more than enough cash to buy a higher floor in a forty-story building and get a sweeping view of the whole damned town.
“I talked to a homicide detective from the Seattle PD this morning,” he said. “Guy named Schwartz. I gather he’s in charge of the investigation. At this point they don’t have any leads. They want to talk to some of the people here at Night Watch who knew Sandra.”
Kate clutched a file folder. “That’s most of the staff. We were all shocked. People are saying that Sandra might have been into the drug scene.”
“I’ve instructed HR to cooperate fully with the investigators,” Josh said. “It’s all very sad, but the fact is that Sandra was no longer an employee of Night Watch at the time of her death. Let’s get to work. Laurel?”
“The new marketing strategy is being implemented today,” Laurel said briskly. “The whole team is really excited. The social media elements have already launched. Orders are starting to tick up.”
He nodded, trying to read her body language.
There was no getting around the fact that the qualities that made Laurel valuable to the company also put her on his list of suspects. Still, he could not convince himself that she had the skills required to pull off a high-tech rip-off.
Unless she was working with someone else, he thought. He hadn’t considered that possibility before now. Shit. Have I got two crooks on my staff? That seemed unlikely. Embezzlers usually worked alone, but there were exceptions to every rule.
“Do you want to go over the final version of the ad campaign again?” Laurel asked.
He realized she had asked the question twice. He turned around. Both women were watching him.
“No,” he said. “I signed off on the overall plan. I don’t need to go through the details.”
Laurel gave him her cool, self-confident smile. “Great. I’ll have some initial dates for you by tomorrow morning.”
Kate cleared her throat.
“Yes, Kate?” he said, not bothering to conceal his impatience.
He tightened his hands behind his back and clenched his fingers. He really, really wanted to go into his private restroom and wash his hands. Again.
“I’ve come up with a new angle for promoting the third level of the Deep Sleep Exploration section,” Kate said. “It’s available for preview and comment. I’ve got a meeting scheduled with the team this afternoon. Will that work for you? If not, I can reschedule.”
“This afternoon is fine,” Josh said. “I think that’s it for now.” He paused. “Unless either of you has anything to add?”
Laurel shook her head and rose from her chair. She was as cool and unflustered as usual.
“No, nothing else,” Kate said.
She shot to her feet, eager to escape.
He waited until they had both left the room before he went back to his desk. He stood for a moment, staring at the closed door of his office. He had to find the thief and he had to do it soon. He was running out of time. The rumors of Night Watch’s financial problems were already starting to circulate. That kind of gossip spread fast in the tech world. If it got out that he was being systematically fleeced, he could forget any hope of securing another round of venture capital. It was okay to burn through cash. That was expected with a start-up. But getting scammed by someone in your own company was a killer.
He crossed the office, opened a door and entered the sanctuary of his private executive restroom. He washed his hands exactly fifteen times, very thoroughly, under very warm water.
When the ritual was complete, a sense of relief descended. He knew it would be short-lived, but at least he could think more clearly again.
He would see someone about the OCD thing when he had some time. But first he had to regain control of his business and find out who was stealing from him.