“Some of the furniture we’ve rented from outside vendors broke or failed to work properly, things like that.”
I stared at the metal bed.“I can’t see how that would fail.”
“The bed, no.That was just the first picture.”He flipped the pages, and there were more pictures of equipment.He explained each one: St.Andrew’s crosses, cages, spanking benches, bondage chairs, stocks.
“Okay, I get it.”All these pictures were sending my imagination all over the place, and I was getting all kinds of hot and bothered.When Lucas and I were together, yes, he’d restrained me, but that was more him holding my hands over my head, or using furry handcuffs he bought at the adult store.This was…different.This was hard core in my book.
“All the department heads got together with our boss and Legal and discussed the best way to go about making sure we were able to provide the best equipment, supervise quality control, and not have to worry about finding experts for repair if something broke.”
“Hence this merger.”I blew out a breath.This made perfect sense.Why hire a company when you can buy the company and make sure they are done to your specifics?
“Yes.But you mentioned you found something off in their books?”
“I did.”I rubbed my forehead.“There are days the books don’t balance, and the next day or so, they do.But it keeps going on, and no matter how much I go over the files, I can’t figure it out for the life of me.There’s no pattern, which is throwing up red flags.”
“Could it be something being returned?”
“That would be easy to see on the profit and loss sheets, but a lot of times there is no entry on the loss side.”I sighed.
“Would visiting the company help?”
Would that help?“It might.It could be something simple, like a supplier they trade with who isn’t listed on the P&L.A lot of companies barter, especially with our economy the way it is, but it should be on the P&L, even if that is what is happening.”
“True, but if they’re not putting in on the books, that’s a danger sign.”
“I agree.”And one of the reasons I wanted to get to the bottom of this.If they were cooking their books, that would give FI solid grounds to back out of negotiations.
“Okay, let me call Miles and Legal and see what we can do.I don’t want the company to think we suspect anything.”
“They have to know you’re looking into the financials.”If they didn’t, then there were bigger issues with this company.
“They do, but they don’t realize we went in for a forensic deep dive after we found the discrepancies on the usual audit.”He rubbed his neck.“We’ve been keeping the forensic part quiet.As far as they know, this is a normal audit of the books.”
I was never a hundred percent sure about any company, especially if a forensic audit became necessary.“I’ll keep digging while you see what you can do about that visit.”I stood and pushed my chair back to my desk.Now that I had a better idea of what I was looking at, I might be able to see if there were notations about bartering or something else, but somehow, I doubted it.I didn’t miss things like that.
When my phone dinged at noon, I glanced at the text message.It was Cassie, asking me if I wanted to go to lunch with her and Emma.After I accepted the invite, Cassie suggested we meet in the lobby in ten minutes.I grinned, then stood and stretched.Lucas was bent over his keyboard, something he’d been doing since we talked.
“I’m going to lunch,” I told him.
“Okay.”He gave me a half wave.
“Don’t forget to take a break and eat,” I reminded him as he’d done for me so often.
His head lifted and grinned.“Yes, ma’am.”
His grin and mock salute sent flutters throughout my whole body.I couldn’t resist returning the salute along with a smile before I gathered up my purse and left the office.
“I’m so glad you said yes,” Cassie said when I met her and Emma in the lobby.
“Thanks for asking.”I didn’t have any women friends; I wanted to get to know both of them better.
“I needed to get out of the building,” Emma said, as they pushed open the door and we walked out into the muted sunshine.Not unusual for Seattle to have partly cloudy skies, but at least it wasn’t raining.
“Asher driving you crazy again?”Cassie asked.
“Always.Now he wants to create a new app for all the employees to use.”
“For what?”I asked.Emma had mentioned she and Asher were working on apps to make things easier for the clients and employees.
