Page 79 of Insidious Threats
Antonia Glass finished her tour of the utterly uninspired and decidedly mundane office space in the kitchenette, where she offered Stasia a drink.
“Coffee? Tea? Hot chocolate? We have marshmallows and whipped cream.”
“No thanks. Do many children work here?” Stasia asked.
Antonia laughed. “No, but sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between children and coders. Several of the people on my team prefer cocoa to ‘grown-up’ drinks.”
“I noticed the toys on the desks.”
The manager nodded. “There’s actually a business case for those. The rubber ducks, stuffed bears, and troll dolls help when someone’s hit a wall in the debugging process. They’ll talk it out to the toy, and, more often than not, they’ll see their solution.”
Stasia was skeptical. “Really?”
“Truly, it works.”
“I didn’t see any toys on Garwood’s desk. You said he was the best debugger you ever hired. Does he not need props?”
Antonia drew her eyebrows together. “That’s odd.”
“What is?”
“Gar has a rubber ducky. It wears a pirate hat and has an eye patch. It’s quite distinctive. He named it Captain Quackers. You’re sure it wasn’t on his workstation?”
“I’m positive. Did you pack up his things? Maybe Human Resources has it?”
Antonia shook her head so vigorously that her long dangling earrings bobbed. “No. There was nothing to pack up. Just his lanyard. We moved to a hot-desk system a while ago. So nobody really keeps personal items in the office.”
Stasia shrugged. “Maybe he took Captain Quackers with him wherever he went.”
“Maybe,” Antonia said in a doubtful voice.
“And you said Mr. March has direct deposit set up. So, you’ll know if he withdraws his final pay once it hits his account.”
The manager frowned. “He does have direct deposit, but we don’t have visibility into that end of things. That would be an invasion of privacy.”
Stasia pushed back. “But if Pinpoint Partners wanted to know whether he accessed his account, you could find out, couldn’t you?”
“I honestly don’t know.” Antonia straightened her back. “I’m a bit confused about why you’re here, Ms. ….” She trailed off when she realized she didn’t know Stasia’s last name. Stasia let her hang there for an uncomfortable moment.
“We’re trying to ascertain that there were no issues with his work. After all, the project Garwood did for us is mission-critical to our business. Surely you can understand why it gives our investor heartburn to know that as soon as he submitted it, he vanished.”
“ETS stands behind all our work, but especially behind Gar’s,” Antonia told her stiffly. “I don’t know why he left, but I assure you it had nothing to do with debugging work he performed for your organization. Now, if you don’t have any other questions, I think we’re done here.”
Stasia didn’t have any questions. This whole trip was the colossal waste of time and energy she’d expected it to be. And she did have to give the manager credit for her feistiness. Stasia was used to pushing people around. But mousy Ms. Glass wasn’t having it.
Good for you, Antonia,she thought as she followed the woman through the maze of desks.
In Stasia’s peripheral vision, a bright yellow duck wearing a pirate outfit caught her eye.
“Wait.”
Antonia turned on her heel to see why her guest had just shouted. Stasia pointed at the duck.
“Is that Captain Quackers?”
“It is, indeed.” She walked over and picked up the rubber ducky, then returned it to its spot on the desk. “How about that? He must’ve given it to Petra.”
“Who’s Petra? This is her work space?”
