“You look well-rested, Miss Stone.” Harrison smirked as I stepped inside.
I looked past him and realized he and Aaron weren’t alone. Almost every executive I’d ever worked with was here, huddled around tables and booths.
“Glad you’re here, Miss Stone.” Aaron pulled out a chair at the center of the room. “Have a seat here, please.”
I moved closer, obliging.
“Do you know anything about how the receivable and escrow accounts are set up here?” he asked.
“Yes.” I nodded, glancing around the café.
Everyone in this room knew all about that.
“Well, your team members have suggested that you may know more, so… we’re going to need your help over the next couple days.”
“Um, okay…”
He slammed a packet in front of me, and Ciara slid her laptop toward me.
“We’re missing millions across the last three quarterly reports, so if we were thinking like you, where should we start?”
“Depends,” I said, confused. “How many millions?”
The room fell silent, and everyone looked as if they didn’t want to give me the answer.
“Miss Stone didn’t have access to these things.” Harrison spoke from across the room. “I’ve checked the codes and already told you this. She can return to pretending to do work until the rest of us figure this out.”
“Fifty to seventy-five million?” I asked, ignoring him.
“More,” Aaron said.
“One hundred to two hundred?”
“More than double that.”
I stifled a gasp and nodded. “You should start with the vendor accounts,” I said. “Sometimes we’d forget to transfer payments for months.”
“We looked there already.”
“I doubt it.” I tapped the laptop and logged into one of our banking accounts. The screen flashed a fifteen-thousand-dollar balance.
“See?” I asked. “There’s some money.”
“That’s not even a drop in the bucket, Miss Stone.” Aaron sighed. “Although, at this rate, we’ll find everything two decades from now.”
“Each vendor had its own account with us.” I ignored the condescension in his tone. “There are over two hundred.”
Silence.
“It’s an amazing start.” He shifted his tone and sat across from me. “Accountants, focus on that. Miss Stone, tell us where to look next…”
At ten o’clock, my eyes drooped and my brain begged me for a break.
Just one more account. One more account.
I forced myself to look through a few offshore accounts where Mr. Lewis once kept special funds for employees. Then I jotted down a few notes and set down my pen.
Standing up from the table, I picked up my bag.
