Page 79 of Love & Other Disasters

“I can.”

Margo glared at him and Deanna shook her head. But he’d take it for now as it kept both of them in their jobs for what that was worth.

The members of the board arrived, and thus began the longest meeting in which he received a verbal colonoscopy from every single person. He didn’t steal the company money, and he didn’t leak the story to the press. It had been his idea to put out a press release earlier, but no one had listened.

On the elevator ride back to the second floor, he took more calming breaths and prepared to reassure his employees that everything was under control. Even if he didn’t believe it. Everyone popped up from their cubicles when he rounded the corner.

“Is it true?” someone asked.

“The report on the news this morning?”

“Is it?” came more irritated voices.

He sighed, “Yes. I discovered nearly a million dollars missing and suspect that Melvin embezzled the funds over the course of his tenure as CFO. This has been under investigation, and the plan was to tell all of you this morning and issue our press release this afternoon and letters to our customers, but someone leaked it first.”

“What do we do?” Steve asked.

“There is now a hotline setup staffed with people from PR for customers with questions to call. If any of you get customers asking, give them the number. I want to reassure everyone that the company is headed in the right direction with everyone’s hard work. It’s disappointing that someone took it upon themselves to call the media and put this out there. There are many pieces to an investigation, and it’s imperative to get it right. Questions?”

“Are we going to lose our jobs?” Steve asked.

“Not anytime soon. I cannot speak to long term. Right now, we all can contribute to the success of this company. You can reassure customers that everything is under control here, and we are able to meet their needs. We now have proper safeguards and controls in place to keep something like this from ever happening again.”

“Have they arrested Melvin?” Bonnie asked.

“As far as I know, he’s disappeared, and the authorities are looking for him.” Gasps came from the stunned group. “I realize it’s difficult for everyone as Melvin was a trusted leader of this team which is part of the reason we held this information back for this long. I wanted to make sure beyond a doubt he was the culprit.”

Some heads dipped below cubicle walls and sniffing sounds floated through the otherwise silent room. A phone rang disturbing the quiet shock and sadness seeping over the room.

“Jordan,” Bonnie stood, “the president of Morgan Health System wants to talk to you. I don’t know how they got my number.”

“They called the switchboard and started with random numbers until someone answered,” he said moving to his office. “Transfer it to me. I’m available after for anyone who needs to talk to me.”

But he wasn’t available for hours. He fielded customer calls one after the other. Many did not want to call the hotline the PR department setup and became angry when employees suggested it. They demanded to speak to either Jordan or Bob. He reassured and begged for patience until his throat was hoarse and he sounded like a bullfrog.

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