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“Yes,” Lana says. “I noticed that approximately sixty thousand dollars was missing from the bank statements. I contacted them and asked if we were missing pages. At first, they said no, but I insisted that the totals were not matching. They told me they’d get back to me after looking into it.”
I look intensely at Lana. “Are you telling me that you went through all of these bank documents and tallied them by hand just to verify totals? That would have taken you forever.”
She waves her hand at me. “Yes, yes, a while. But listen, some line items must have been deleted. I think they purposely doctored the statements.”
“What proof do you have, Lana? Totals not matching could be easily explained. Maybe we are missing some pages. Maybe you made a mistake when going through the documents. It’s a lot to go through.”
Lana nods to Liz again, and she takes over. “Take a look at the bank statements I handed you. This morning, we finally received the full documents after I told them we wouldn’t be able to move forward without them. There weren’t any pages missing, just a few entries. I’m sure that they thought we wouldn’t catch it. We’re talking just four entries out of thousands,” Liz explains.
I look down at the highlighted entries. Confusion knits my brow as I read. I look over at Dax, and he seems as confused as I am.
“Why would they try to hide attorney fees?” he asks.
“I agree. Certainly, they have an attorney on retainer. But these appear to be in addition to that.” I continue to flip through the pages. Liz has also highlighted the monthly retainer fees. But there are four additional entries of twenty thousand dollars each. This has occurred once a month over the last four months. “This doesn’t make sense.”
I look over at Lana. “Have you checked to see if they have any SEC filings against them?”
“I checked, and no, nothing. I couldn’t find anything. They don’t seem to have any judgments or filings against them, no lawsuits.”
My mind is speeding through all of the possibilities. “Great job on finding this, Lana. And Liz. You’re right. Something isn’t adding up here.”
Dax nods. “Yes, the fact that they omitted those entries is suspicious enough. I don’t believe for a minute that it was an accident. It’s such a small amount that we probably wouldn’t have even seen it had they not omitted it. So what are they hiding?”
“I’m not sure, but I’m going to find out. We aren’t going to be rushing into the quick closing that they want. That’s what I know for sure,” I tell him. “In fact, it is highly unlikely that we will be closing on this deal at all. They are screwing with the wrong people.”
I stand up. “Lana, Liz, I appreciate your work on this. I’m not sure I would have caught this without your help.”
“It was all Lana.” Liz shrugs. “She sent it to me last week. All I did was verify that she was right. You better make sure you keep her around.”
“Oh, I intend to. She’s not going anywhere.” Lana blushes at my words as my eyes drill heavily into hers.
Dax gets up from his chair and walks over to me. He puts his hand on my shoulder. “Ladies, if you could excuse Jake and me. I have some other business to discuss with him.”
“Of course!” Lana jumps up and almost rushes to the door. As much of a controlled and put-together front she showed during the meeting, I can tell that she is happy to escape the room.
Liz follows her out with a quick, “Talk to you later.”
After they close the connecting door, I turn to Dax. He’s now leaning on my desk, arms crossed, and looking at me smugly.
“So, you and Lana, huh?”
“Yes, me and Lana. I was going to tell you, but this all happened pretty suddenly.”
“Liar. You wouldn’t have said a word to me,” he disagrees.
“Of course, I wouldn’t. You’re an ass who will undoubtedly enjoy making fun of me to no end. And also, it’s against the rule that I personally made about not dating employees.”
“Is it serious between you two?”
“Yes,” I say simply.
More serious than I want to admit to myself.
“Is this why you canceled with me on Saturday and why you wouldn’t answer my calls this weekend?” he continues grilling me.
“Yes. She and I spent the weekend together.”
“Okay.”
