I appreciated the fact that he asked, and that gratitude made me slip, and I smiled at him. “Send them in as other ones come out. These interviews will be much shorter than Mr. Ludwick’s was.”
Jalen nodded, then disappeared. A couple seconds later, a stern-looking brunette came into the office.
“Nanette Browne,” she said, her tone softer than I would’ve guessed. “I’m the head of marketing.”
I gave her my best professional smile, writing down her name and starting with the first question.
“How well do you know Theo Ludwick?”
* * *
Even though thepoint of me talking to Jalen’s employees was to get a feel for Theo and to see if anyone would have a reason to use his daughter against him, I couldn’t help being impressed by the quality of the people I was meeting. They loved and respected Jalen, and they worked hard because they believed in him and in the work, they were doing. The work environment was professional but not overly authoritarian. He allowed room for fun and relaxation but didn’t let it compromise the product.
But that wasn’t the reason I was talking to every person in the company and asking them about Theo. I needed to focus on the case and put aside my own interest in my client.
Except nothing I heard today gave me any solid leads. Everyone agreed that Theo was a great guy. Honest, hard-working. They talked about how much he loved his daughter, how after his wife’s death, she meant everything to him. None of them had ever seen him behave suspiciously, and none of them had ever seen him lose his temper, not even when he’d lost an entire day’s worth of work when an intern spilled fruit juice on his laptop.
He was well-paid, but not excessively so. If someone wanted ransom, Meka wasn’t necessarily the best target, unless they thought they could get Jalen to pay for her release. From what I knew about him, that wouldn’t have actually been that far-fetched. Besides, that usually meant making contact to ask for ransom, and that hadn’t happened.
I was still going to put everything on the board to make sure I hadn’t missed anything, but I was as certain as I could be with what I had that neither Theo nor anyone he worked with was responsible for Meka’s disappearance. Which meant I’d be taking a look at those names on Theo’s list…and considering the fact that she might have run away.