Chapter 67 The Hidden Dangers of the Company
"There's a problem with the project?" Joanna was surprised. "But didn't the investigation from that complaint a while back turn up nothing?"
Lyle quickly said, "I've looked into it too. It seems Cooper Corporation stepped in. It's not just as simple as you using money to fill the funding gap, Miss Jones."
Chris helped her?
Joanna frowned, somewhat unwilling to believe it, but after thinking it over carefully, she figured it must be because of the compromises she'd made those few times that satisfied Chris, so he had Cooper Corporation step in to help.
"Can you find out what specific project it is?" Joanna asked.
Lyle's voice sounded troubled. "I can only try to investigate. I just found that this payment is a bit unclear, and there's no employee in charge within the company. It's like a project that suddenly appeared out of nowhere. I wanted to give you a heads up first, so I made this call."
If it really was illegal business, Jones Corp and the current nominal shareholder—meaning Joanna—could both be implicated!
Joanna knew how serious the problem was and took a deep breath. "I understand. You investigate privately first. I'll try to get information from Henry and Chad to see if I can find out what they've actually been doing behind the scenes all these years."
"Okay!"
With Joanna's word, Lyle felt relieved and went straight to investigate.
After hanging up, Joanna's first thought was actually to ask Angelo for help, but she felt embarrassed about always troubling him.
She sighed and finally decided to start with Chad and Henry. Maybe she could get something out of them.
The next day happened to be a day off, so Joanna called Chad and asked him out for a meal.
Chad didn't want to go at first, but then figured Joanna might be apologizing to him and Henry, so he agreed to meet.
The location was a restaurant near the school. Joanna ordered food in advance, and after Chad arrived, she first asked about his graduation situation before steering the conversation to the company.
"I'm only now realizing how hard it really is to manage the company. Dad worked so hard before. So many business situations are unclear—I can't understand them."
Chad immediately lifted his chin with a disdainful look. "Who told you to insist on taking over the company? Dad took the ten million dollars Cooper Corporation gave him and is relaxing outside, having the time of his life! Since you know you don't have the ability to manage the company, just transfer the shares back!"
Joanna put on a defiant look and glared at him. "I just took over. It's normal not to understand everything right away, isn't it? You've been by Dad's side, so you must have learned something. Why don't you help me look at these few projects? I can't find where the payments went. I don't know what business Dad was doing."
She pretended to take out payment records and vague project files she'd prepared in advance.
Chad actually didn't know either, but after flipping through two pages, he acted like he understood. "Why should I tell you? These are the company's core businesses. You make Dad angry every day, so of course he won't tell you!"
"But..." Chad changed his tune. "If you give me a million dollars in spending money, I'll call Dad and ask for you!"
Joanna frowned, somewhat reluctant to spend that money.
But afraid of the risks it might bring later, she still chose to transfer the money.
Chad was satisfied after getting the money and called Henry. "Dad, Joanna recently arranged for me to learn at the company and gave me a project. I don't understand it. Can you help me find the person in charge? This is my first project. I don't want Joanna to look down on me!"
"Joanna is actually willing to let you into the company?" Henry's voice sounded somewhat surprised, but he still seriously opened the project materials Chad had sent over.
In just a few seconds, he immediately said seriously, "This project is too important. Don't touch it. Just throw it back to Joanna to solve herself. Tell her to give you a different project!"
This project really did have problems!
Joanna's face turned very ugly.
Chad was about to hang up, but seeing Joanna's expression, he suddenly got curious and asked another question. "What kind of project is it exactly? If I just tell her I can't do it, won't that be embarrassing!"
Henry started scolding directly. "She has bad intentions, giving you such a dangerous project. She definitely wants you to go to jail! Chad, don't ask so many questions. Just remember not to touch anything related to this project!"
When he agreed to the share transfer back then, Henry had thought of this project.
The project had been running for two years, and he'd privately learned some information and sensed the crisis.
He'd originally planned to wash his hands of the project. Since Joanna insisted on taking over the company, of course he needed to find someone to take the fall!
Henry thought his little scheme was well hidden, but he didn't expect it to be discovered by Lyle, who had just joined the company.
It could only be said that the people Angelo found for Joanna were indeed very professional and top-notch.
Henry was afraid of saying too much, so he hung up directly.
Chad curled his lip disdainfully. "I took the money. I'm not giving it back just because I couldn't find out."
Joanna didn't care about that million dollars anymore, because Henry's tone was too strange. From her understanding of Henry, this project definitely had problems!
But she couldn't get information through indirect probing, and asking Henry directly probably wouldn't get her an answer either.
She needed to think of another way.
Chris had recently been looking at new project opportunities. He let Cynthia handle taking on some foreign design orders for the design department, barely maintaining personnel costs.
The new direction he was interested in was pharmaceutical research. This was thanks to the research institute he'd invested in.
Dr. Gordon reported that headquarters had made the latest progress and would likely release new drugs to benefit patients.
But Cooper Corporation's previous industrial projects had too little cooperation with pharmaceuticals, so Chris needed to bring in a partner. After selection, he set his sights on Grace General Hospital.
This was one of the few hospitals in Austin City that could match St. Mary's Hospital's reputation, with very strong medical resources.
Moreover, Chris learned through former friends that Grace General Hospital was backed by Smith Group, a conglomerate even larger than Cooper Corporation!
He put in a lot of money and finally got an appointment.
Before entering Smith Group, Chris was very confident about this cooperation.
But just as he was about to take the elevator, he saw a familiar figure coming out of the elevator next to him.
Why was Angelo here!
Apart from that face, in the few times they'd met, Chris always felt Angelo was too ordinary. He'd never taken such an opponent seriously.
He grabbed an employee beside him and asked, "Do you know him?"