“Hi, Jack.” Wyatt rushed into the office out of breath. “I got your message that you wanted to see me as soon as I got back.” He moved to give Jack a hug and Jack allowed it. No sense in poking the bear before it was absolutely necessary.
“We need to talk,” Jack nearly grunted the words. His patience had reached its limits. He moved to the door, shut and locked it. Then he sat at a chair at the conference table. He had laid the supplier invoices out in chronological order. “Sit,” he ordered Wyatt.
Wyatt raised an eyebrow at the papers strewn across the table but did as ordered. “What’s going on?”
“Remember I asked a friend of mine to have a look at the accounts?”
Wyatt clamped a hand over his heart. “Of course,” he sighed in obvious relief. “I’d forgotten about that.”
Shit. That wasn’t a normal response. Was Wyatt involved? Was he the reason profits were nose-diving? Did he even realize it? Jack stared at his former lover. He raised an eyebrow in question, but Wyatt ignored the unspoken question and smiled at Jack. Jack ran a hand through his hair and took a deep breath before speaking.
“Anyway, we found a problem.” He indicated the papers spread across the table.
Wyatt leaned forward. “What problem?”
“It turns out that a bunch of suppliers have doubled and some even tripled their prices,” Jack explained.
“No way!” Wyatt grabbed the invoices and rifled through them. “I don’t believe this.” He gasped as he flipped through the invoices. “There’s no way that Derrick would increase his prices this much without talking to me first.” He mumbled to himself, but Jack’s ears twitched at the mention of another man’s name.
Jack leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest and studied Wyatt. Wyatt became more and more agitated as he looked through the documents. “Explain to me why our costs have gone through the roof.”
Wyatt threw the papers back on the table and leaned back. His face was a dark shade of pink and drops of sweat had formed on his brow. “I’m not sure.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “This is your responsibility, Wyatt. Walk me through it.”
Wyatt took a deep breath. “Well, first of all, the prices vary every month as we never order the exact same thing. Sure, there are best-selling items that we always stock, but the general stock changes with each season. So there’s always some up and down with the total cost.” He shook his head. “But this doesn’t make any sense.”
“So you didn’t know anything about an increase in prices?” Jack wanted to be sure.
Wyatt shook his head. “No. I place the orders myself and I didn’t see anything unusual.”
Jack had to be sure. “Would you have noticed?”
Wyatt glared at Jack. “Of course I would have noticed! Who do you take me for?”
No way was Jack answering that question. “Okay then. Who’s Derrick?” Jack glared at Wyatt, unwilling to give an inch.
Wyatt gulped. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”
“Seriously?” Jack indicated the invoices. “We’re leaking money like a sinking ship and the first thing you say when you see the invoices was that Derrick wouldn’t do this to you.”
“Crap.” Jack waited. “He’s a friend,” Wyatt finally admitted. Jack didn’t respond but continued to wait him out. “Okay, he’s more than a friend. But he would never intentionally steal from me.”
Jack sighed. “How can you be sure?” He tried to gentle his voice.
Wyatt turned on the offensive. “The same way you’re sure that Damien isn’t stealing from us.” His voice turned nasally in its nastiness.
Jack closed his eyes and counted to ten before replying. “Damien and I aren’t involved.” Wyatt snorted. “Seriously, we’re not. Besides, these invoices are from before his time.”
That stopped Wyatt cold. “What are we gonna do?”
“We aren’t going to do anything.” Jack made sure to emphasize the word we. Wyatt started to sputter a response, but Jack held up his hand. “I’m sorry, but I can’t have you involved when you’re romantically linked to one of our suppliers.” Jack didn’t bother to add that being involved with a supplier was nearly as bad as fucking an employee. He also ignored the fact that had Wyatt been doing his job in the first place this wouldn’t be happening now.
Wyatt jerked to his feet. “Fine,” he said and stormed out of the office.
That went well.
Chapter 24
Gather the troops
As soon as Wyatt left, Jack called Damien into his office. Damien, knowing that Jack was planning to meet with Wyatt that morning was quick to answer the call and rushed in a few minutes later. “Close the door behind you,” Jack told him. Damien closed the door and sat across from Jack at the conference table.
“Well?” Damien finally asked when he couldn’t stand to wait any longer.
Jack shrugged. “Wyatt doesn’t know anything.” He sighed. “And he’s fucking one of our suppliers.”
“I’m sorry, Jack,” Damien spoke softly.
Jack waved his concern away. “I’m not upset because he’s my former lover. I’m upset because his boyfriend might be using him and he’s too much of a romantic to realize it.”
“Okay.” Damien nodded slowly. “What do you want to do?”
Jack shook his head to rouse himself from his melancholy. “We need to find out why the invoices are so high. What could the reasons be for that?”
Damien scrunched his nose. “Increase in material costs, inflation...” His voice trailed off when he realized how lame his answers were.
“Or someone’s fucking with us!” Jack shouted and slammed his fist on the table. Damien reached forward and squeezed Jack’s fist. Jack immediately relaxed and then freaked when he realized a touch from Damien was what calmed him down. He jumped up from the table and started pacing back and forth.
“I have an idea,” Damien said after watching Jack try to burn a hole in the carpet with his pacing.
Jack stopped moving and turned to him. “What?” he questioned as he ran his hands through his hair for the millionth time. He was going to go bald if he kept this up.
“What if we call the suppliers and ask them?” Damien gulped. “Well, obviously not the supplier Wyatt is involved with but the others. Why not?” He shrugged.
Jack moved back to the table and collapsed in his chair. “And tell them what? Ask them what?”
Damien leaned forward. “Why don’t we say we’re doing an audit? I haven’t spoken to any of the suppliers yet. None of them know I work for you. I can pretend to work for some auditing firm.” The more he talked, the more excited he became about his idea.
“Have you done anything like this before?” Jack was still unsure about the idea.
“Sure and,” Damien paused, “if they really did increase their prices, they’d think we’re fools for not calling to verify.”
Jack slowly nodded his head. “Okay, let’s do this.” He looked Damien in the eyes. “But I want you to make all calls from in here while I’m there.” Jack saw a flash of hurt in Damien’s eyes before he nodded in agreement. “I’m sorry,” he started to say, but Damien interrupted him.
“I understand. I just started working here. You have no reason to trust me.” The words were the correct ones to utter, but Damien refused to look Jack in the eyes. Jack was surprised by how much that hurt.
Jack took a deep breath and decided to keep his and Damien’s personal feelings out of this. “Okay, how do we begin?”
♥♥♥
By the next day, Jack and Damien had gathered all the information about the suppliers they felt necessary. They had looked through the price increases over the past several years as well as any changes in ordering amounts. No matter how they looked at it, it just didn’t make sense. Sure, there had been price increases in the past but nothing like the 100% increases they were seeing now. Something just wasn’t right.
Damien picked up the phone to call
the first supplier. “Hi, I’m calling on behalf of Fabulous, Darling. We’re conducting an audit and I just have a few questions.” Jack could only hear half of the conversation and that was frustrating as hell. “That doesn’t match with our records.” “Huh?” “Do you have the originals?” “Yes, that would help.” “An email would be awesome.” “Thanks.” “You’re a doll.”
“Well? What did you learn?” Jack nearly exploded when Damien finally hung up the phone.
Damien shrugged. “The numbers don’t match.”
Jack shook his head. “Huh? What does that mean?”
“The amounts we have on our invoices don’t match the amounts of their invoices,” Damien clarified.
Jack scrunched his nose in confusion. “What?”
Damien nodded his head. “I know. I’m confused as well. She’s emailing me a copy of the invoices from the past year.”
Jack started to pace the office again. Damien stood up and put his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “Let’s just wait until we have the original invoices and take it from there.” Jack nodded and placed his hand over Damien’s and squeezed. He felt rather than heard Damien’s quick intake of breath. He quickly released the hand and moved away from temptation.
By the end of the day, Damien had contacted all of their major suppliers, even the one at which Derrick worked. Every single one of them had emailed their invoices and every single invoice had been altered. But by whom? And why?
“I don’t understand.” Jack was sitting at the conference table with his head cradled in his hands. “How can this happen? Who changed the invoices and when? How did we not know this was happening?”
Damien chewed on a pen in thought. “I don’t know. Someone should have noticed.” He paused and dared to look at Jack. “Why didn’t you notice?”
Jack glared at Damien. “You’re assuming it’s a problem on our end and not theirs.”
Damien nodded. “Yeah, because if there was someone fooling around with the invoices on their end then we never would have noticed the discrepancy. They would have covered their tracks so that their clients wouldn’t notice.” Damien took a deep breath and gathered his courage. “So, the question remains, how come no one noticed here? How come you missed it?”
“How would I have known?” Jack threw his hands in the air. “Until last month, I was getting my dividend check in the same amount. I had no idea something was wrong.”
“Don’t you look at the monthly P&L statement?” Damien continued to be brave.
Jack nodded. “I didn’t notice anything awry in them.”
“Okay.” Damien took a deep breath and steadied himself. “Can you get them and we’ll have a look?”
Jack nodded. He went to his computer and opened his email account. He quickly found the messages from Eric, which contained the profit and loss statements and printed them. He grabbed the printouts from the printer in the corner of his office and joined Damien at the table again.
Damien grabbed the original purchasing orders they’d received from the suppliers and compared the expenses listed on the statements with what they now knew were the actual purchasing expenses. He shook his head. “They don’t match up.”
Jack didn’t respond to Damien but picked up his phone and dialed. “Gather the troops and make sure Noel is home as well. We’re on our way.”
Chapter 25
Let’s get this party started
Izzy’s house was buzzing with anticipation by the time Jack and Damien arrived. The elderly knitters were all present and accounted for as were Izzy and Noel.
Damien looked around the group with wide eyes. Although he knew about the silver-haired sleuths from their escapade of snooping at his house and of course he’d already met Rose who was one of them, he hadn’t expected to see the group of them gathered around a kitchen table like they were planning some kind of secret spy mission. He shivered at the thought. Jack quickly introduced the other troublemakers, and Damien being Damien, charmed them with panty-dropping smiles.
“And...” Jack pointed to Noel standing behind Izzy. “This is Noel. He’s a homicide detective, but he’s also our group’s consultant.” Noel grunted at the description but leaned forward to shake Damien’s hand. “You remember Izzy from the interview.”
Damien leaned down and kissed Izzy’s cheek. “Of course I remember this sweet thing.” Noel growled behind him and Damien winked at Izzy, who giggled and flushed a lovely shade of pink.
Betty cleared her throat loudly. “Let’s get this party started,” she said causing Izzy to giggle again and the men to chuckle. Betty ignored their laughter and turned her attention to Jack. “So, what have you learned?”
“Well,” Jack cleared his throat and began. “You know that we were concerned with the obnoxious increase in supplier prices that Rose discovered.” When everyone eagerly nodded, he continued. “I talked to Wyatt and he claims he knows nothing about it.”
“Claims?” Izzy asked. “You don’t believe him.” She raised her eyebrows at him.
Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s acting weird.” He took a deep breath before revealing the next juicy tidbit. “And he’s screwing one of the suppliers.”
That got the ladies attention, but Izzy was the one to respond. “But he claims that you two are back together and he’s pining over you and giving you all kinds of grief.” She shook her head in confusion.
Jack just shrugged again. “I know, I know. But it’s better this way. Now, I have some ammo to deal with his bullshit.”
“Do you think Wyatt’s behind it?” asked Rose.
Noel cleared his throat. “Shall we let Jack finish the story first?” He asked politely, but his jaw was set in obvious irritation.
“Anyway,” Jack cleared his throat before continuing. “Damien and I called the suppliers. Just to see if there was something we were missing.” The ladies turned their gaze to Damien and he winked outrageously while treating them to a brilliant smile.
Noel shook his head and tried to get things back on track. “What did you learn?”
“Something is very, very wrong. We had the suppliers send us the original invoices and the original invoices don’t match with the invoices we have on file – not one single time.”
“And you’ve paid the amount on the invoices in your files? Not the amount on the originals?” Noel was clearly into detective mode now.
Oops! Jack hadn’t thought to check that crucial clue. He had just assumed as much, but now he looked to Damien for confirmation. When Damien nodded, Jack responded with a quick “yes.”
“Okay.” Noel started pacing in the small area behind the kitchen table. “How much money are we talking about?”
“Six figures.” Damien’s quiet voice responded.
Noel stopped prowling and turned to the men. “Six figures?” He raised an eyebrow at Jack, who merely nodded in agreement. “Shit, Jack, this isn’t an accounting mistake. Someone’s stealing from you.”
Betty clapped her hands to get everyone’s attention. “Okay, who are the likely culprits?” she asked and rubbed her hands together in excitement. Jack rolled his eyes.
Rose was the first to respond. “Damien’s safe as this all happened before he started working at Fabulous, Darling.” She winked at Damien.
“Okay. Who else?” Betty continued. “Wyatt?”
Jack hunched his shoulders and bowed his head. “It could be Wyatt, but I don’t think he could pull this off on his own. He’s just not that…” He took a deep breath and searched for the proper terminology, “…knowledgeable about accounting and such.” He shrugged. “He never cared to learn. He was all about the fashion.”
Damien reached over and grabbed Jack’s hand for a squeeze. Jack held on to the warmth that spread through him from that simple touch.
“Okay,” Betty nodded. She scribbled in her notebook. “So he’d have to be in cohorts with someone else? What about this man he’s having relations with?” She tapped her pen against the notebook.
; Damien leaned over and whispered into Jack’s ear. “She scares the living daylights out of me.” Jack chuckled. He straightened his spine and looked at Betty. “His name is Derrick. And his company is involved as well.”
Noel spoke up. “I’m not feeling it. If Derrick and Wyatt are in cohorts, why are there problems with so many other suppliers?”
Betty nodded as she continued to scribble in her notebook. “But we can’t discount him at this point.” She refuted the professional detective’s statement without a blink of an eye. “Who else?” she demanded as she fixed her gaze on Jack.
Jack gulped. “Eric.”
“Fudge,” Izzy whispered. “You don’t think…” Eric had been working at Fabulous, Darling for years. Jack and Wyatt depended on him to keep the ship afloat.
Jack shrugged. “I don’t know. I find it hard to believe. He’s such a hard worker and he’s like family.”
Damien cleared his throat. “I don’t trust him. He was a complete asshole to me when I started.” His cheeks turned a dark pink, but he held his head high.
Jack turned to him. “I don’t think that’s suspicious though. I think he’s worried that you’re going to steal his job, especially since you’re gay and he’s not.”
Damien shook his head. “Nope. I’m not buying it. I don’t trust him. He acted very suspiciously when I was working in his office.”
Again the word suspicious caught Noel’s attention and like a meerkat, his head popped up. “Suspicious how?”
“Whenever he had a phone call, he’d ask me to leave or step out of the office. He made sure I couldn’t see any of his files. He kept his computer locked whenever he wasn’t on it.” Damien answered. “It’s not normal.”
Noel tapped his chin in thought, but Betty was ready to get the show on the road. “So Eric is definitely a suspect,” she said and her fellow amateur sleuths murmured their agreement.
“Oooh.” Martha clapped. “When are we going to recon his house?”
Damien nearly fell off his chair with those words. “Oh, my God. Like they did at my place?” He hid his laugh behind his hand.
The Gray-Haired Knitting Detective Series: (Books 1 - 3) Page 25
