Angie logged onto the company website to pull up the Cardinal Group’s bank statements. Maybe she’d find that number somewhere in the information she already had.
NO FILE EXISTS
Maybe she’d clicked the wrong thing. She tried again. She was into the Barton, Barnes and Blake server, but there were no Cardinal Group statements anywhere. She sat back and blinked at the screen.
The Cardinal Group’s account was closed, and it appeared that everything had been wiped from the server. Maybe they didn’t trust anyone but Charles. Maybe he’d already gotten a job elsewhere and they’d moved everything to that company. Or maybe they’d hired him on as a full-time accountant.
She’d been into their account just a few hours ago. No one had told her the company was leaving Barton, Barnes and Blake. Hell, no one at the Cardinal Group had ever answered her emails either.
Angie took a swallow of wine. Worried the inside of her lip. Thought about texting Liam.
Instead, she picked up her phone and texted the one person she knew would give her good advice. She didn’t think he was awake right now, but he’d answer in the morning.
Angie: Remember that account I was telling you about with the odd figures? It’s gone. Everything wiped from the server. All I have is Martinelli’s spreadsheet. I guess I should be thankful I don’t have to work on it anymore, but still. It’s weird. First he doesn’t come back to work, then an account that wouldn’t reconcile is gone too—and they never answered my emails. I don’t know what to make of it, but it’s late and I can’t sleep and I’m babbling. Finger-babbling. Hope you’re happily asleep right now. Wish I was.
Angie put her phone down, finished her wine, and returned to the fridge to get a little more. Just for giggles, she sat at the island and repeated the process of looking for the Cardinal Group’s files.
Nothing. A buzzing started at the back of her brain. She went looking for Charles’s spreadsheet. She’d made a copy to work on because she didn’t want to fudge anything up in the one he’d made. She wanted to be able to prove to her bosses just how jacked it was if she failed to resolve it.
NO FILE EXISTS
A chill shot down her spine. The spreadsheet was gone? Someone had closed the Cardinal Group’s account, wiped their records, and wiped Charles’s record of the work he’d done.
“No, no, no,” she muttered as her heart kicked up. “I don’t want any trouble. Not again. Fuck you, Martinelli. Why’d you have to run away like a big chicken anyway?”
Her phone pinged with a text and she squeaked at the sound of it. “Calm down, Angelica,” she said. “You’re way too jumpy lately.”
Colt: What usually happens when an accountant quits?
Angie: They give notice. And there’s a lot of discussion about the accounts they leave behind before they’re gone. We contact the clients to introduce ourselves and let them know we’ll be the new person handling everything and they can count on a smooth transition.
Colt: You said they didn’t answer your emails.
Angie: No. I sent one to introduce myself, and two asking for more information on the account. No reply to any of them.
Her phone rang. It was Colt.
“Hi,” she said. “Sorry if I woke you.”
“You didn’t. I was awake.”
Did he have trouble sleeping too? “You didn’t have to call.”
“Angie.” He said her name with such calm authority. “You found something that scared you. I’m not going to ignore that.”
She thought back to her text. “I didn’t say I was scared.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s a weird situation and it has you on edge. I can tell.”
She didn’t bother to ask him how he knew because it was true. “I am on edge. I wish I’d never gotten this account. The others were fine. This one makes me think Martinelli was up to something—or the company was. Which makes his quitting that much more suspect, especially since nobody at work has heard from him since.”
“You said you still have his spreadsheet.”
“Yes. I made a copy because I didn’t want to do anything to his since it wasn’t right. I thought if I couldn’t reconcile the numbers and needed to alert my boss, it would be there as proof.”
“So the original is gone?”
“Yes.”
“What’s the name of the company?”
“The Cardinal Group. They’re a venture capital firm.”
“No opportunities for mischief there,” Colt said. She could hear the sarcasm in his voice. It made her laugh, in spite of how serious this whole thing felt. “Maybe don’t tell anyone you have that spreadsheet, Ang. Keep it to yourself.”
“I should delete it. Forget the whole thing.” As if she could. This whole situation had her on edge and that wasn’t likely to change. Deleting the spreadsheet didn’t make the problem go away.
“Don’t delete it.”
Angie sighed in frustration. “I won’t. I know it won’t help.”
“You never found any actual evidence of criminal misconduct?”
“No. The figures are wrong, but you can’t prove anything with that. It just means we don’t have all the information yet. People sometimes forget to send all the statements, or they incorrectly categorize transactions. It happens. It’s our jobs to sort it out and make everything neat and tidy.”
“You could send it to me. We’ve got people at BDI who can analyze it. Maybe they’ll find something.”
She thought about it for half a second before she rejected the idea. It was tempting, but it was also against the rules. “I can’t give it to you. It’s confidential client information. I probably shouldn’t keep it either—but I will for now.”
“All right then. If you change your mind, my company will be discreet about it. I promise you that.”
“I’ll keep it in mind. Thanks for talking me off a ledge, Colt. I’m sorry I freaked.”
“It’s understandable. And you can talk to me anytime, babe.”
She yawned again. “I’m finally starting to feel like I might get some sleep
