Conditional Love

Chapter 14

**|~A~ Report|**

The men all gather around at Mr. Blackbourne's house in a room he set up to act as a conference room. North is talking with Nathan about what is probably wrong with his car while Silas smiles at a text sent in by a woman he's been talking to for the past few weeks. Luke and Gabe are whispering to each other but stop whenever they notice someone, particularly Kota watching them. Victor is staring at his computer screen, trying to determine how to go about making the software for C&G to give the employees ease of access but to also trap the person stealing client and budget proposals.

Sean enters the room with a big grin and a couple boxes of pizza, Mr. Blackbourne follows behind with another couple of boxes.

The moment the pizza is on the table, boys are claiming whole pies for themselves as they begin to eat.

The room is silent long enough for everyone to devour at least two slices of pizza and then Mr. Blackbourne stands up and glances at all his teammates.

"This is just a basic catch up on what has happened during the week and any problems you might have come across."

He looks over at Kota who clears his throat as he pushes up his glasses and collects the rest of his thoughts.

"We met with Mr. Corsan and Sang Sorenson on Wednesday. She gave us a tour of the place on Thursday and since then we have been working on getting cameras up to cover the building."

"What are your impressions on the employees? Anyone suspicious?" Mr. Blackbourne asks.

"Still too early to tell," Kota answers. "We've only met a couple of people who work on the projects. We did meet the majority of the administrators."

"Thoughts?"

"Busy," Kota says. "They are busy, definitely need more hire to help them. This company is growing faster than Mr. Corsan expected. From what we were able to figure out, three of them have open religious ties. One of them, Amilia Langsford, wears a silver cross she keeps over her shirt. I've seen her hold it too as comfort or reassurance or something. Ryan Merden has a tattoo on his forearm. It's a cross on a chain made of barbed wires. Alina Yates is the other one we noticed. She has a picture in her cubicle of her standing with her family in front of a church with volunteer shirts on."

Mr. Blackbourne nods. "Put them on the list for potential suspects against Miss Sorenson. Mr. Morgan, how are the deep background checks going on all the employees?"

Victor shrugs. "Nothing. Mr. Corsan did a good job in looking into the background. The only biggest crime any of them have is a few DUI tickets from a couple years ago. Amilia Langsford is divorced, no kids. Aldon Sills has custody over a twelve year old girl, their mom ran off when the girl was just a baby. Graham Whaley has two ex-wives and a current wife of fifteen years. Nothing stands out about them. No criminal records, no arrests, no warrants, nothing. They're clean. I'm still looking into some people but for the most part, no one has suspicious backgrounds."

"Thank you," Mr. Blackbourne says. "Onto our management team. We've only met with one client yesterday evening but are scheduled to meet with the rest over the upcoming week. The projects are straightforward, nothing we can't handle with the training we've gone through. I looked over the client information in the database. It seems whoever is making the clients chose other companies is taking the proposals and selling them to other architect firms and then the firms are able to tweak the information so that their proposal is cheaper. Victor, I'll need you to try to find a paper trail or money trail. Maybe set up a fake bid on a project and see if we can lure them out that way. Whoever it is, doesn't want this company to be successful."