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Who would have thought?
Chapter Twenty-Three
COLE
I’m en route to my least favorite activity here at Siesta Playa: meeting with Todd. This hurricane has given me a nice little reprieve from him. We’ve been so busy putting out fires that he hasn’t had a chance to pull me aside to continue executing his brilliantly idiotic plan of laying off valuable employees. His reasoning for the whole thing isn’t even sound. He thinks he’s going to save the resort a few bucks and our CEO’s going to congratulate him for it? What happens when the guests start realizing that the service here took a nosedive? That all our best people—the ones who make their stay here worthwhile—are gone because of Todd’s inability to see past his own thickheaded ideas?
It doesn’t matter. I won’t let Todd get to me. I’m in a good mood. Paige will do that to you, make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I’m walking like I’m in a bouncy house—lighter than air after last night and this morning.
I love her.
I pass a cleaning lady, and I almost grab her by the shoulders and spin her around to tell her.
“Did you hear? I love Paige!”
Surely those gardeners over there want to know.
“Guys! I’m in love and I don’t care who knows it!”
The other reason I’m in a good mood? The Survival Preparedness convention wraps up today. The loons are leaving. Sayonara until next year! You’d think after this hellacious experience with the hurricane and power outages they’d rethink a return visit to Siesta Playa, but I know better. They’ll be flocking here more than ever come next August. I shiver just thinking about it. Maybe I can convince Paige to take that week off with me. We’ll book a trip somewhere,anywhere.
I turn down the executive hall, checking the time. Todd texted me this morning.
He texts me a lot, actually. It’s always memes that were barely funny five years ago and therefore definitely not funny now. I don’t even know where he finds these blurry JPEG relics from the past. A chain email?
I don’t usually respond to his texts unless they’re directly work related, but like death and taxes, they just keep on coming.
This morning’s text was about this impromptu meeting. Despite walking Paige to her dorm, I’m still right on time. I knock once and then let myself into his office since his door’s already open.
He sees me and nods. “Cole, good. Come on in, son. And shut that door behind you, will you?”
Being referred to as “son” by Todd is nausea inducing, but I do as he says, closing the door.
He’s standing at his window, cracking open peanuts and trying to drop the empty skins into a trash can at his feet.Tryingbeing the operative word. His aim is off; most of the shells wind up on the floor. When he sees me notice, he kicks the mess with his foot, trying to disperse it. Yup, that oughta do it.
“Take a seat. You want some peanuts?”
He shakes the two-gallon bag in my direction.
I pat my stomach. “Had a big breakfast. Thanks, though.”
“Ah,” he grumbles. “Trying to be careful with that dainty figure of yours?”
Dainty. Right. A tanker truck is dainty compared to Todd.
But I don’t say this. Of course not. I merely nod because with Todd, it’s best to say less. If I’m not careful, eventually I’ll put my foot in my mouth one of these days. He’ll figure out what I really think about him, and then the jig is up. I’d hate for that to happen when I can practicallysmellmy freedom. Paige’s too.
I’m officially onto him. Even with the hurricane, I’ve been working around the clock on this dilemma with Todd. Connie in accounting finally sent over the thick packet of expense reports I asked for a couple of weeks ago. I’d requested everything from the last year, hoping it would be enough. Turns out, it was.
I started running through them meticulously, day by day. Tracking the routine expenses of a resort as large as Siesta Playa is no easy feat. What I was searching for was akin to finding a needle in a haystack. Once I realized that I could rule out any expense reports that didn’t include Todd’s signature, my stack shrunk by a sizable amount. In the expense reports from March, I found my first discrepancy. It was a bill for $5,458.02 paid to Turtle Cove Equipment, LLC. The bill was signed off by Todd, and it stood out for two clear reasons. For one, on the expense report under “Description” it simply read: “Entertainment and Hospitality Department—supplies and equipment.” On top of that, there were no receipts submitted with the report. None.
It should have immediately bounced back when he submitted it. Expense reports have to include itemized receipts—that way they can be easily tracked and verified. If this random LLC was providing us with, say, scuba equipment, there would have been a receipt to show for it.
I’d imagine the accounting department came back to Todd with these issues, but Todd likely used the power of his director title to push it through, no questions asked.
In May, again, Todd signed off on another bill from Turtle Cove Equipment, LLC, for close to $10,000 using the same generic description. In July, there was another bill for $35,000.
At first, I didn’t outright assume these were inaccurate or fraudulent expense reports. We have a large entertainment and hospitality department that encompasses all the indoor and outdoor activities available for our guests. Sailboats, snorkel gear, yoga mats, bingo-night supplies—it all comes out of the E&H budget. All their equipment has to be maintained and routinely replaced, and that gets expensive.
