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The ironic part was that he’d planned the whole thing out, insisted that he was in charge. And he had been. He’d purposefully resisted when she’d urged him to hurry, drawn it out, a slow, deliberate torture. And yet…he had a nagging sense that a person who was so calculating—a person in charge—should not be left feeling this positively gutted with pleasure.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Good idea.” If he had any hope of getting out of here without jumping her again, it was probably smart for her to use that mouth for something banal. Like talking.
Shooting him a bewildered look, she scrambled to a sitting position and put her T-shirt back on. It didn’t help. She still looked like she’d been fucked within an inch of her life.
“How did you discover Carl was stealing from the company?”
Well, that was unexpected. But still, a nice chat about Winter Enterprises’ problems could be just the distraction the doctor ordered. “I was working through a stack of mail late one night a couple weeks ago. Seth was on vacation, so we’d had a temp in. An invoice addressed to Carl mistakenly made its way into my pile, and I opened it before I noticed it wasn’t meant for me. It was an invoice for lumber.”
“Is that suspicious?”
“Not inherently. But I know the names of all our suppliers. All. Like, down to where we get our toilet paper. And I didn’t recognize this one.”
“Uh oh.”
“Yeah. It was called A-plus Construction, which is not a name I know.”
“And I would guess, being a developer, you know the construction industry pretty well. Plus, that’s, like, a name you would make up if you were inventing a fake construction company.”
“Exactly. And the address was a P.O. box, and there was no phone number.”
She groaned. “And nothing on Google, I assume?”
“Nope.”
“And the company turns out be registered to Carl?”
He nodded, glad she hadn’t asked how he’d figured that out, because he’d called in a few favors.
“Funny,” she said, scooting off the bed and heading for the kitchenette. “It all came to light because of a misdirected invoice. Because of a temp who screwed up.”
“Yes, and I’m aware of how stupid I am.”
“Not stupid. You trusted him.”
“I should have known better.” It was hard to say aloud. “There should be more than one person’s eyeballs on incoming invoices. Anyway, lesson learned. Of course, that set me off looking at everything. If there’s one fake supplier, why not more?” He paused. He still hated talking about it. She’d been nothing but kind, but his disability was a shortcoming. A serious one. “Everything takes me ten times as long as it should because I’m always second-guessing myself. Part of me still wants to think he’s doing some kind of creative accounting that I don’t understand, something that benefits us. Something he hasn’t bothered to tell me about.”
She shook her head from her vantage point by the sink. “Sorry, but I don’t think so.”
He sighed. As much as it sucked, it was kind of a relief to have someone else confirm his worst suspicions.
“Coffee?” she asked. “I’m making some.”
“No thanks. I should get to work.”
She turned, coffee pot in hand. “Would it be okay if I looked around for you?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m pretty familiar with your company now. What if I poked around a little more, dug deeper, checked on the invoicing for the past couple years? Then when you call the police—”
“I won’t be a total ignorant idiot,” he interrupted.
“That wasn’t what I was going to say.” She turned back to her coffee making. “Anyway, don’t worry if you’d rather not. I just thought—” She cut herself off with a slight headshake.
“You thought what?” Her head kept shaking. He had to get her talking again or the flapping of that evil dark mane would prevent him from leaving. “Tell me.”
“You helped me last night.” She flashed him a sheepish smile. “And this morning. So I thought maybe I could help you, too.”
The idea that she simply wanted to help him damn near took the wind out of him. He couldn’t speak right away. When he did, his voice was embarrassingly raspy. “That would be great. I’d appreciate having at least a big-picture handle on what has been happening before I call the cops, knowing if there are any more suspicious suppliers. I was going to worry about that after the Wexler deal, but if you have time…I’ll pay you, of course.”
