AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“You’re considered to be one of the top forensic accountants in the world,” said Seth looking at a tablet she hadn’t noticed before. “You graduated from Florida Institute of Technology with a Masters in Accounting and Financial Forensics at the ripe old age of twenty-one. You turned down several lucrative job offers from major accounting firms as well as the FBI, the IRS, and reportedly the CIA. Instead, you opened your own firm, Foster’s Financial Forensics, and have taken some very lucrative government contracts as well as jobs with numerous entities that deal not only with our government but several other friendlies, as well.”
Anabella was gobsmacked. “How do you know that?”
Seth shrugged. “Like I said, I’m the hacker. Doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes take the lead, nor that I couldn’t step in front of a bullet headed your way. It just means I’m better trained at making sure we have all of the information we need.”
“But you only just learned my name.”
Seth grinned. “But the minute you came through the door, one of our cameras snapped a picture of your face and ran it through our proprietary facial recognition program. Once I had your name, the rest was fairly easy to find.”
“Basically,” Cooper drawled, “he wanted to impress you with what Cerberus can do.”
Anabella returned Seth’s grin. “Mission accomplished.”
“Now, what makes you think someone is out to get you?” asked Coop.
“I was recently hired by an international conglomerate, Blackwood Industries. They have a number of different entities under their corporate umbrella.”
“We are aware of who and what Blackwood is and does.”
“Oh, good. Well, one of those ongoing projects is with the Department of Defense—wait. Is all of this confidential?”
Coop nodded. “Yes, ma’am. Even if we don’t ultimately take your case, whatever you told us up until that point is privileged information as far as we’re concerned, and that’s a hill we’re willing to die on.”
Anabella drew in a deep breath. “I was hired by the founder, Josiah Blackwood. He wanted me to audit all of the divisions to ensure that they were reporting their profits and loss correctly.”
“So, the old man thought somebody was skimming the profits or at least cooking the books?”
Anabella nodded. “Most people don’t know me by face. That can be an asset in my business. I often go in kind of undercover for the owners to find out what’s going on. A kind of mousy accountant by day…”
“And a super sleuth by night. Word is you’ve been able to help both the FBI and the IRS in some of their bigger investigations.”
She nodded. “I have no online presence—no website, no social media.”
“So, you found something?”
“Yes, but not what I think Mr. Blackwood wanted me to find.”
That seemed to make both Coop and Seth sit up and take notice.
“Something that might implicate Blackwood doing something illegal?”
Again, she nodded.
“So why not go to the cops or the IRS?” asked Cooper.
“I did, or at least I tried to. Everybody I tried to tell seemed to want me to tell someone else.”
“Blackwood Industries has a lot of friends in places of power. Before someone points a finger at them or accuses them of anything, they’ll want to be sure. And even if they believed you, Blackwood would spin whatever you had to exonerate themselves and make you look like some nut job.”
“Finally, I got hold of a friend of a friend—a low level accountant with the Department of Defense who is supposed to monitor these big government contractors—and he agreed to meet me, but only if we could do it covertly. The next day I went to the place we were supposed to meet, and someone tried to stick a knife in me. When I went to the cops, they told me Chicago wasn’t a safe place for nice girls to wander around alone at night. The inference being, either I was stupid or a hooker.”
“Or both.” Quipped Seth.
“I was already sticking my neck out with this. I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement.”
“If you were right, you figured the whistleblower statutes would protect you.”
She nodded.
