I looked at Charmaine. “This one isn’t in the system. How often was Gold Moon signing contracts with clients and not entering them onto the system so they could be tracked?”
Charmaine shook her head. “To be honest with you, I don’t know. Joe and I had only just started this process when he died.” She stopped and tilted her head. “I mean, the process was already meant to be in place, but we were only just starting. There were a few different managers who weren’t as diligent as others. So we were busy tracking everything down and making sure records were up to date. That was when some of the things started to come to light. Little inconsistencies that added up to form a bigger, more worrying picture. Some days, we were just banging our heads against a brick wall, though. It’s hard to introduce change when people don’t believe the system needs changing.”
Wes nodded. “Tell me about it. Jo’s a real technology dinosaur. If it wasn’t for me, she’d still be using a quill and ink by the yellow light of a tallow candle…”
I laughed. “Never that bad. And I think Charmaine and Dad were right here. If Gold Moon was really growing at the kind of rate that’s attracted the interest of Apex, everything needs to be in the system. There’s no excuse for it not to be.” I set the file to one side. “That needs to be looked into again later.”
“It probably would have been on there eventually. Once we’d noticed the inconsistencies, we checked and double-checked everything, trying to find the source.” Charmaine crinkled her nose. “It’s just like I said: we were only really doubling down on the process, and then your dad wasn’t finished because he got sick and died.” She stopped abruptly, her face turning a shade paler as she swallowed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to remind…”
I patted her hand. It wasn’t possible for someone to remind me that I’d lost Dad. I never truly forgot. Especially not when we were doing the kind of work we were doing now — the work he hadn’t been able to complete.
“That kind of reminds me.” Something in my tone attracted the attention of both my friends, and they stopped what they were doing to look up at me.
Only I didn’t really know how to put the next part into words. It was something that had been bothering me ever since we’d found out the cause of Dad’s death. The one thing that really didn’t make any sense at all.
“How did my dad get the Lycan Flu?” I’d imagined so many ways it could have happened, but each possibility had grown more and more fanciful until I was in the realm of spies and corporate espionage. Surely there was a much more simple and rational explanation than that.
But Dad’s death…a car chase…that wasn’t even remotely in the realm of rational. I swallowed, my stomach suddenly roiling as I stood with my friends.
It wasn’t like Dad was a huge mover and shaker in Carwyn City. He was a man with his nose to the grindstone making a comfortable living and doing well for himself, but he was no high-flier like Patrick. And his success came from customer service and running a good organization rather than being showy and well-known. He’d always had a loyal client base, and that was where he’d focused.
But Charmaine shook her head. “That’s one thing I really don’t know, and I wish I did. You wouldn’t believe how often I’ve lain awake at night and run all of the events through my head trying to work it out.”
I did believe it. I’d been doing the exact same thing since I’d heard.
“It just makes no sense. He hadn’t been on a business trip I didn’t know about, right?”
She shook her head. “Nope. I mean, if he’d actually been to Donora Summit, this would all have made sense. But we don’t have any mining connections as far as shipping is concerned as far as I know, and certainly none of the contracts I’ve seen have even originated there.”
“Was there anything suspicious at all?” We’d been through all of this, and I had no doubt Charmaine had answered the same questions again and again to different people. “I don’t want to put you under any pressure. I just don’t understand.”
She sighed. “That really makes two of us. As far as I knew, things were normal. We were investigating these odd contracts and he was doing a warehouse check, but that was the only place he went. He was checking on one of the missing shipments.”
“Which warehouse?” Wes asked this question and I looked at him. He shrugged. “It might help, right?”
But Charmaine shook her head again. “I have no idea. He didn’t say.”
“Then you know what?” Wes moved position, stretching his legs out from under him and groaning as his bones clicked. “Oof…I’m getting too damn old to sit around like this.”
I laughed. “What would you rather be doing?” I held up a hand. “No need to answer. I know almost anything else would be preferable.”
He grinned. “Yeah, it would, but something I just thought of could be interesting.”
“Oh yeah? And what’s that?” Knowing Wes, it was taking off for a run through Mom’s garden and making Patrick’s security patrol chase us or something.
“Well.” His eyes sparkled as he leaned in closer and lowered his voice like someone else might overhear.
I laughed at his imagination. It was on full display right now.
“How about we start checking out the warehouses ourselves? I mean, shipments can’t just bemissing, right? They must be somewhere. So how about we find them? Or if they’ve moved, maybe we’ll find some sort of paper trail or evidence as to where they’ve gone. Someone somewhere must know. There are people out there who will have seen them.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “Let me take a look at the logistics.”
I pulled up a list of the clients whose shipments seemed to be getting stolen or going missing. Charmaine had been right. These seemed targeted because the same clients were unlucky repeatedly. There were maybe half a dozen companies that really shouldn’t have continued to do business with Gold Moon if they’d been bothered about the security of their property. The fact that they’d returned again and again didn’t make any sense.
“Okay…” I scanned the list. “Stolen, lost, misplaced temporarily…I think these incidents are where we need to visit the warehouses. Let me cross-reference and we can see if the same locations keep cropping up.”
Charmaine glanced over my shoulder and looked at a piece of paper in her hand. “And these companies are the ones we keep flagging because of incomplete contracts as well.”