Armed With Steele

by Kyra Jacobs

  She stood then, and stole a glance at my notepad. Maybe it was good the notes had been taken—less evidence for her to dig up.

  “Well, thanks for the heads up. I’ll try to stay out of the stairwell, too.”

  As if I needed another reason to avoid it.

  Chapter 26

  Once Vanessa had gone, I retraced my steps on the computer from Friday, taking a fresh set of notes as I went. After several failed attempts, I was able to get back to the list I’d pulled up before. This time, I decided to start with the most recent entries and work my way backward.

  Sure enough, several transactions had been made Grace’s last day here. The first was a payment to some delivery service, its amount less than $1,000. Nothing unusual there. The second transaction was payment for some brochures our department had ordered, the total far less than the first.

  Yawn.

  The third, however, was an electronic payment made to some consulting firm I’d never heard of before, in the amount of $9,997.

  $9,997?

  Something about that number tugged at my subconscious. I dug back through my prior notes, ones that hadn’t been stolen. Sure enough, Michael had mentioned at some point during my training that all payments over $10,000 required approval by the CFO. Anything less than that, and the responsible division head could sign off on them.

  My eyes swept back to the computer screen. $9,997 to a Morrisson Consulting Group. Another keystroke and I had the transaction details up on the screen. Payment was sent on September 10th at 5:08 PM by GBS.

  But why would she have paid a bill so late in the day? And on a Friday, no less?

  I pulled out my cell phone and checked my missed calls log. 5:05 was when she’d called me last. The text she’d sent after I hadn’t picked up came in at 5:07.

  I stared down at my phone, trying to make sense of it all. Why would she head out to her car, call me, text me, and then come back inside?

  Maybe she forgot something? It sounded like a reasonable enough explanation. Only, hadn’t Nate said the original 911 call came in around 5:15? I tried to think back to our conversation in that tiny hospital conference room. Maybe I had the accident time all wrong…

  I sent Nate a quick text, to double-check. Within minutes, he confirmed my thoughts. The call had come in to 911 at 5:15 that evening.

  Transaction at 5:08, accident at 5:15. My gaze swept over to the wall of windows. Her office was on the second floor, her car no closer than the second row of the parking lot. It didn’t seem possible for her to be in both places only seven minutes apart.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. Things just weren’t adding up.

  Frustrated, I decided to take a break from all that thinking and get some of my actual work done. I knocked out a few more transactions and then printed out a fresh summary sheet.

  As I watched my desktop printer’s ridiculously slow inkwell glide back and forth, my thoughts drifted to Grace. It was 9:45. Would she be up by now? Would she wonder where I was? Why I wasn’t there?

  Fingertips on my temples, I tried to rub the guilt from my mind. It wasn’t like I was avoiding her, or leaving her stranded. Hell, I was here trying to save her buttoosky. Regardless of what she’d said, this whole mess had been my fault from the beginning, and it would be me who’d make it right in the end.

  I gathered up the printouts, and took them down to Michael for his review.

  “Finished?”

  I handed them over with a nod. “Only five or six, though. Sorry, I’m still getting the hang of this.”

  “Only?” He looked over the top of his bifocals at me. “Jessica it usually takes my AAs a month to get up to this speed. Are you sure you aren’t skipping a few steps?”

  My cheeks began to burn. “No, sir. I followed your directions and checked everything twice. But please, have a look and let me know when it’s okay to finalize and then file them.”

  So while Michael spent the next half an hour double-checking my work, I was doing some double-checking of my own. On the rest of the payments processed by GBS.

  Everything seemed to be fairly standard stuff. Small amounts here and there for supplies, print jobs, office furniture. But when it came to the Morrisson Group, their invoices had erratic amounts. The highest being from this last month.

  After Michael approved my work, I finalized the transactions and headed down the hall. Was elated to find the storage room empty. I filed away my completed invoices in their corresponding vendor files, then hunted for one labeled Morrisson Consulting Group. It was tucked in the far back of the middle row of drawers. Rather than squat and stretch at an odd angle, I lifted the folder from its hanging dungeon and set it atop the extended filing drawer. No sooner had I opened the folder, my cell phone vibrated in my pocket.

  It was Grace. Apparently she’d inherited her mother’s poor sense of timing.

  “Hello?” I ducked down and kept my voice barely above a whisper.

  “Hey Jess. Did I…catch you at a bad time?”

  “No.” I cringed, knowing I couldn’t leave it at that. My roomie could talk for hours non-stop if I let her. “Well, I mean, sort of bad, yeah. Getting ready to meet with a client. Business has been booming lately. Lots of meetings, lots to do.”

  “Oh, wow, that’s great, Jess!”

  “So, how are you feeling today? Any better?”

  “I guess so. This whole being weak stuff really stinks. Just sitting up wears me out.”

  She kept talking, but I missed the rest. I’d shifted my attention to a set of approaching footsteps. I straightened up and looked down at the Morrisson folder, spread open before me.

  “Jess?”

  The footsteps drew closer. I flipped the folder shut, snatched it up, and tucked it under my arm. A woman I recognized from the lunchroom rounded the corner and gave me a cursory nod, then continued on her way. I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Sorry, you cut out on me for a moment. Bad reception. Can I give you a call back after my meetings?”

  “A call back? Aren’t you going to come and visit? I hate it here. It’s so boring and lonely without you.”

  Talk about a guilt trip—Grace had my bags packed and loaded in my car with that line. “Of course I will. Not sure what time it will be, you know how these things go. But I’ll be there.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “And you’ll stay as long as you can?”

  “You bet.”

  I cringed. Nate was expecting me after work. Then again, being with Grace would keep me safe from those seductive blue eyes of his. And surely he’d understand—this was Grace we were talking about.

  * * * *

  “What do you mean you’re on your way to Metzler? I thought we had plans?”

  I squinted up at the stoplight and squirmed in my seat. “Well, Grace called. And she put me on this huge guilt trip. I mean, I haven’t been able to talk to the poor girl for more than a few hours this whole month. How could I tell her no?”

  I heard Nate sigh. It wasn’t a happy sigh, more like a pretty pissed-off one. “So, what was the good news you were calling about?”

  “I found some suspicious invoices in our financial system today.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Get this. The day of Grace’s accident? There’s a transaction listed with her credentials time stamped at 5:08.”

  “5:08? But the accident—”

  “Happened at 5:15. Suspicious, right?”

  “Highly.”

  “And the amount was only three dollars less than the cutoff for mandatory administrative approval.”

  “Someone’s trying to sneak in just under the radar?”

  “That’s my guess, too. But there’s more. When I pulled each invoice for this Morrisson Consulting Group from the past five months, Grace’s signature…varied.”

  “You think someone’s been forging her name?”

  “It sure looked that way to me. But I took the folder back to my office
and scanned them all so you can be the judge of that.”

  “Ah, but that would mean you’d actually have to see me again. You can’t hide from me forever, Jessica,” he said, his voice low, sexy.

  My palms began to sweat. “Who’s hiding?”

  He chuckled. “Have I ever told you what a terrible liar you are?”

  “If that isn’t the pot calling the kettle—”

  “Hey, you got to sleep alone in your own bed on Saturday.”

  “Only because crazy Katie sabotaged your plans.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The smirk in his voice came through loud and clear.

  “Uh-huh. Who’s the liar now?”

  “We’ll settle this later, face to face. You go do your thing with Grace, and call me before you head home. I’ll be waiting there for you.”

  “But—”

  Too late, he was gone. Damn pushy cop boyfriend of mine.

  * * * *

  I stayed with Grace until nine, when the nursing staff at Metzler kicked me out. They’d started enforcing their visiting hours, now that she was awake again. Which was fine—while I loved having my best friend back, I hated having to fudge about nearly everything that’d happened without her the past month. Heck, the past day. I headed home, exhausted, starved, and frustrated.

  Nate was waiting for me as promised, his cruiser along the curb out front. He saw me coming and met me at the back door.

  “Where’s your fancy ride?”

  “Home. Captain wants more presence in the neighborhoods, asked us to drive our squad cars off duty and park ’em in plain sight.”

  “Huh. Well you can leave your guns and cuffs in the car, thank you very much.”

  “Darn,” he said, a twinkle in his eyes. “There goes that idea.”

  I let us in the back door and tossed my purse down on a chair in the kitchen. “You hungry?”

  “No, I ate hours ago.”

  “Lucky. Grace wouldn’t let me out of her sight all evening. Couldn’t even use the bathroom without her freaking out. You’d think they were beating her or something.”

  Nate’s eyebrow shot up.

  “Which they aren’t. At least, I hope not.”

  I turned my attention to the refrigerator and rummaged around for something to eat. A little white Chinese carryout box begged me to pick it up. I gladly complied.

  “You got those scans of Grace’s signature handy?” Nate asked, taking a seat at the table.

  “Yeah, hang on.” I spooned out my leftover shrimp lo mein into a bowl and tossed it in the microwave. Then I crossed the room and retrieved the papers I’d tucked into my purse.

  “Okay, this,” I said, handing him the first page, “is Grace’s signature. I’ve seen her sign her name like that hundreds of times. There’re all sorts of receipts in her room with that exact signature on it.” I handed him a second page, which displayed her signature from September 10th. “Now, take a look at this one. See how the S is more rigid? And the Ls aren’t quite right, either. But it’s the G that really gives it away. The person who wrote this left off that little tail.”

  Nate studied the two pages side by side, then looked up at me with furrowed brows.

  “What?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing. It’s just that sometimes you amaze me.”

  I removed my dinner from the microwave and grinned.

  “So, you made it sound on the phone like there was more than one forged signature. Where’s the other?”

  I set my dinner on the table and flipped through the rest of the papers until I came to a transaction from the end of July. “Here. Total fluke that I even caught this one, but the date caught my eye. Remember it like it was yesterday. Grace had an abscessed tooth. Poor thing came home from work one night with the worst toothache. Had to call in sick the next day, the twenty-third, so they could do an emergency root canal.”

  Nate surveyed the sheet I’d handed him. “But…this transaction was done on the twenty-third.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Don’t you think her boss would have noticed that?”

  I pondered that thought as I chewed and swallowed my first bite of dinner. “I don’t know. Michael’s awfully busy. If he didn’t have to sign off on it until the following week, then I doubt he’d remember or even notice it.”

  “But these other signatures are hers?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, does that really prove she wasn’t embezzling money?”

  I scowled. “Someone forged her signature at least twice, Nate.”

  “Sure, for actual invoices. You want to prove she didn’t steal that money? Find out what Morrisson Consulting Group actually does for Maxwell, and who stands to lose the most if that contract doesn’t get renewed.”

  “You working tomorrow?” I asked, slurping a noodle into my mouth.

  Nate shook his head.

  “Okay, then how about you run along and do some research on Morrisson while I get caught up on my real job.”

  Nate’s eyes narrowed. He rose from his chair and came to stand behind me, then leaned down so his mouth was level with my left ear. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to get rid of me.”

  “Get rid of you? Who, me?”

  He kissed my neck. Goosebumps sprung up all along my arms.

  “Um, I’m eating here.”

  He kissed my neck again. This time a little lower. “Oh? Well, don’t mind me.”

  I set my fork down. Swallowed loudly. “It’s getting late.”

  I felt his lips bend into a smile under my ear. “Then I should go so you can get a good night’s sleep. Because you’re gonna need it.” He stood. Swiped his keys off the table and headed for the back door. “You and me. Six o’clock. My place. Tomorrow.”

  I retrieved my fork with a shaky hand. Knew damned well that he had more than dinner on the agenda for tomorrow. And had no idea how to worm my way out of it this time.

  * * * *

  I headed back into work the next morning with a chip on my shoulder. What I’d originally thought to be a major breakthrough in our investigation—the forged signatures—had actually led to more questions and zero answers. Come to think of it, that was the way this entire case had gone: zero steps forward, five steps back. I needed to find something to give me some thrust, get me over the newbie investigator hump.

  But what?

  So engrossed in my thoughts, a full five minutes passed before I noticed the innocuous white note beside my keyboard. I picked it up and opened it slowly. Inside, was a typed message:

  Mind your own business, or you’ll end up like she did.

  I swallowed hard. Knew exactly who she was, and how much I didn’t want that to happen. Whoever had stolen my notes had been back.

  But how? And how had they known what I was doing?

  I lowered the note and took a deep breath. At least they just called Grace she. Not your best friend. Not your roommate. Only she.

  The thought helped to quell my frayed nerves. I pulled open my drawer, stuffed the note into my purse, and pulled out my cell phone to send Nate a text message. Semi-quelled or not, I had to retype the message three times, my hands were shaking so badly.

  Thanks for the heads-up, he wrote back immediately. You’ve got your necklace on, right?

  I reached up and clasped the pendant resting in the hollow of my neck. Yes.

  Good. Hit the panic button if you feel threatened, don’t go anywhere alone, and call me when you’re leaving work.

  If I feel threatened? Too late, buddy. OK.

  BTW, I searched online for Morrisson. Are you sure of spelling?

  I was 99.9% sure, but retrieved the printouts from my purse to be sure. Two R’s, two S’s. Yes. The invoices say Morrisson Consulting Group.

  OK, give me a min.

  I looked down at the invoice in my hands. It was definitely nothing fancy. Name, address, amount owed, due date. My eyes flashed up to the address—a PO Box in Angola, Indi
ana.

  My hometown. Where my parents still lived.

  I wondered if they’d ever heard of this Morrisson Consulting Group. It looked like I was going to have to bite the bullet and call my mother today. And suffer through a who-knows-how-long interrogation that would start with questions about Grace’s recovery progress and segue into my love life. I could hardly contain my excitement…

  My cell vibrated again. Another new text from Nate. I’m not finding anything with that spelling.

  My curiosity climbed another notch. Can you do a reverse lookup on PO Box 578, Angola, IN 46703?

  While he did that, I turned back to my computer. What had Nate said last night? Find who had the most to lose if Morrisson lost their business with Maxwell. Maybe it was family owned, or politically connected. Either way, for a company as large as this to contract with a consulting group so small they didn’t even appear on the web, I had to believe there were ties between the two companies somewhere in the building.

  I tried to think of how I would even begin piecing that puzzle together. Michael had said something about the IT group giving me more permissions for the financial software—maybe they’d opened up additional network files as well. It was time to take a closer look and see if I couldn’t find an organization chart or two.

  Thanks to the thorough file-naming scheme employed by Maxwell, a handful of clicks later I had on my screen a full employee listing, updated a week prior. Thank goodness for Anal Annies.

  I searched the file for any name starting with Morr. The results brought back Morre, Morris, Morrie, and Morreen, but no Morrisson. My temper boiled beneath the surface. Of course there’s no damned Morrisson—that’d have been too easy. And nothing seemed to come easy to me lately.

  Another buzzing from my phone. I found the Post Office address of that PO Box. Gonna check it out, see if the employees can tell me anything.

  I felt fear, cold and deep, wash over me. He was going to Angola, and leave me here unprotected? I typed my response as fast as my fingers would allow.