The Struggles of Growing Up-Completed

Chapter 23

I knew my first day in my economics class that I was doomed for life in anything money related. Must be why I eventually went into business, right? (Note the irony.)

Will's horrified face can never match mine. There's so many things running through my mind, so many people I desire to yell at, but I maintain composure. It's imperative I maintain the strong leader mentality. This is going to be the biggest test of my faculties of my life, everything is on the line.

I take a deep breath, and carefully tell Will, "Get all the expense reports starting from 2008." He knots his eyebrows, and for the first time I see fear in his eyes.

"Why 2008?" He asks, completely dumbfounded. He is a respected adult, so I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Isnt it obvious?

"That's the year my father died." I grab my keys, ID, and laptop, ask Deb to bring me a very strong coffee, then make my way to the conference room.

It's absolute chaos in there. The whole Tech department really is in there, including Principle Investigators, graduate students, physicians you name it. Even the people that don't work directly at Remlor are here.When Will finally caught wind of the stolen money, he closed the whole department temporarily, sending all the scientists into a frenzy.  So many projects on hold, so much equipment that won't be getting to hospitals, no wonder everyone is here.

The room is too small to fit everyone, so most people are standing and everyone is arguing. I cannot hold a meeting with everyone in here.

"Alright!" I yell. They all stop. "Anyone lower than a PI or professor or physician, or, anyone with money and a graduate degree, leave immediately." Soon, about 3/4 of the mass of people start to exit the room, still bickering and harassing me with questions that I return with "I'll get back to you later". That little outburst sure boosted my confidence, but what on Earth do I say?

"Now", I say to the remaining people who take a seat. "I imagine you are here because of the unexpected shutdown of your department."

"Yeah, why is that?" A slightly angry professional snaps at me. I have to stand my ground in this. I also have to be careful with what I say.

"1.5 million dollars has been stolen from the company under expenses from this department." Bickering erupts again, so I wonder where Deb is with my coffee.

Will comes is shortly, with all the expense report sheets. I don't know how this problem could go unnoticed for so long. I ignore their bickering, and soon The room goes quiet as I inspect the papers. I was right. The expenses went up at a small, constant pace following my father's death, then shot up when Zach's father died. It went back to normal before I even got here. It was under miscellaneous though, so there isn't a way of knowing exactly where the money went. I know it didn't go into the labs, equipment, nothing pertaining to the company, there was no increase in anything company related. That money disappeared somewhere, by someone, and they times everything perfectly. The large expenses stopped shortly before I took over officially, there has to be something valuable in that.

The Tech department is oblivious to this, they don't have enough power to move the money. It had to have been someone higher in the company. Someone with a true motive to want to bankrupt the most important division in this company.

"What is it?" The head of accounting, Laurie, asks me. This blew right over everyone's heads, I now realize.

"The large withdrawals went under the miscellaneous section, but didn't go into the department itself. It's still not clear who took the money, but I have an idea of when."

"So when will the labs and assets be open again?"

I sigh. "Truthfully, I don't know. There's no way we can keep this department open when there is a lot of money missing. Everything biotechnology related has to pause until we can find a way to retrieve the money to fund it again. " I rub my forehead as A multitude of groans and bitter remarks erupts.