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She blinks at me for a few moments. “We don’t have a department with that title.”
“I have it on good authority you do.” As in, official documents sent over from this company.
She shrugs helplessly. “I’m sorry, I’ve never heard of it. It’s weird, we just had someone earlier ask about it too.”
That’d be Tracy. “Then I’d like to see Christopher Lassiter.”
She fumbles with her computer mouse and starts clicking. “I’ll look at his calendar and check what his availability is for an appointment.”
“Listen, you recognize me, right?”
“Yes,” she says warily, as if she’s already in trouble for not knowing about the department.
“Then you know I’m not going to wait around to meet with him a week from now. I need to see him today.”
She hesitates briefly before giving in. “Okay.” She pulls a keycard out of her desk drawer and hands it to me. “This will get you to the fourth floor. Accounting is on the left as you exit the elevator.”
“Thanks.” At least she didn’t hassle me. Sometimes it pays to be Harold Bishop’s son.
As I exit the elevator four floors up, there’s a middle-aged balding man waiting for me, ready to shake my hand. So she gave him a heads-up then. Good on her. She’s loyal to her company.
“Mr. Bishop. This is an unexpected pleasure.” Yeah, I doubt it. “How can I help you?”
“Mr. Lassiter, I presume?” He nods. “Could we meet in private?
He visibly swallows. “Oh, of course. Would you like Greg here as well?”
“No.” Not yet, at least.
“My office is just in here.” He holds a door open for me, and the workers in their cubicles on the main floor quickly return their attention to their computers, as if they weren’t all blatantly staring a second ago.
I know what it looks like. Bigwig from the company who’s set to buy you out shows up unannounced. They have to be worried about their jobs, but that’s out of my hands. I can at least make sure we offer a nice severance package for those we can’t keep on.
He thankfully has an office with a door that shuts, although anyone can still see us through the floor to ceiling glass window.
I set my attaché case down on his desk and pull out a sheaf of papers, handing them to him.
“What’s this?”
I take the seat across from him, crossing an ankle over my knee. “Well, I was doing my due diligence and found something a little off. If you wouldn’t mind turning to that page sticky-noted there?”
I observe him carefully as he does so, his face paling the longer he looks at the paper. Interesting.
“What’s your question exactly?”
“What does Research and Development do?”
He tugs at his red striped tie. “I don’t work in that department, so I’m not sure.”
“But it does exist?”
He glances down at the page he’s holding that clearly says it does. “Yes.”
“You know, it’s funny. On the way over here, I looked up the people that work there on LinkedIn, but not one of them has a profile.”
“Huh.” He clears his throat noisily. “Maybe they’re not all that social.”
I shrug, humoring him. “A few I could understand, maybe even half. But every single one isn’t interested in professional networking or listing their resumes? Especially considering most of them were recently hired?”