The Run Around

by Bernadette Franklin

  “They’re anxious about their taxes, aren’t they?”

  “They are. They don’t want any financial surprises.”

  I read between the lines, assuming that the couple was particularly worried about their taxes. “Would they like to do the initial meeting with me tonight after work? As long as they don’t mind Edgar Allan Paw and Lenore settling in and a possible trip to the pet store, I don’t have anything else planned for tonight. If the animals like car rides, I can go pick up the files.”

  “They can bring the files to you, I’m certain. We already have the digital copies, but they also have all the paper records, too. I’ll give them a call and see if they want to move the timeline up. If they have an early night, it wouldn’t surprise me if they take you up on that.”

  “How do you want me to proceed should I find any other unwanted surprises in this audit?”

  “Call me over and warn me I’m going to need a stiff drink after work tonight,” he replied before hopping to his feet. “I will futilely hope for no more surprises today.”

  “Please send me that list of oddities, please. For some reason, I think I’m going to need it.”

  According to the introductory paragraph of the file Garret sent me, several bottles of alcohol, twenty accountants, and a bad shift had resulted in a brainstorm session of frighteningly plausible methods in which someone might hide illegal activities. It amused me that the file openly acknowledged alcohol had been involved in the creation of a work document with a disclaimer that it had been after hours.

  Some of the entries, including the stable visits for a ride, left me a giggling mess. From falsely increased invoices to unusually expensive trips, the brainstorm session read more like a guide to skimming money from a company. As accountants could be trusted to cross every t and dot the i while they were at it, the guide included links to the expected costs of various goods, services, and trips.

  To my relief, I plowed through all of the unregistered invoices but found nothing else questionable at first glance. With a little luck, the rest of the audit would be mundane and boring and lack sex workers, adult toys, or bedroom activities unsuitable for public places.

  As promised, Garret brought pizza along with offerings for Edgar Allan Paw and Lenore, who warmed up to me enough to shuffle closer to my feet rather than sticking to the bed set out for them. When my dog wanted to go out, he heaved a sigh, stood up, and shuffled to the door and stared at me with sad eyes.

  Lenore wanted to go, too, and she cried when I clipped Edgar Allan Paw’s leash to his collar.

  That sent me to my phone to call my boss asking how I could possibly take the cat on a walk, and he showed up with a harness and leash for the kitten, which she wore without much protest. Rather than make her try to keep up, I carried her in the crook of my arm while I led the old dog to the elevators for a stroll to the park down the street so he could do his business outside.

  To my delight, Lenore limited her protests over going outside to the occasional whine, and once I had them at the park, I discovered she would ride on Edgar Allan Paw’s back.

  My unlikely pair drew attention, including the owners of other dogs giving their pets a chance to stretch their legs. My old man handled them with skepticism but grace while Lenore hunkered in his thick fur and hid.

  To keep from stressing them more than necessary, I waited until Edgar Allan Paw lost interest in sniffing around the park before leaving, taking care to make use of the nearest trash can to deposit his odiferous offerings. To keep from trailing muddy prints all over the lobby, I cleaned his paws, which he tolerated with a flick of his ear and no other sign of being annoyed by my activities. I praised him for being a good boy, took the pair back to my office, and out of curiosity, I moved the dog bed closer to my desk to see what would happen.

  Edgar Allan Paw approved of my decision and opted to use my foot as a pillow.

  Life was good, and I meant to enjoy every minute of my enslavement as his provider of walks, treats, and affection. If I lost my foot, it would be a worthy sacrifice. I churned through the majority of the outstanding invoices, breathing a sigh of relief that none of them seemed to be infected with any form of insanity. A knock at my door stirred the sleeping beasts, and Edgar Allan Paw issued a low growl. I reached down and scratched behind his ears to convince him there was no danger. “Come in.”

  My boss cracked open the door. “Did I just hear the dog growl?”

  “Apparently, this is his space now, and if you could bring him the appropriate sacrifice, he might forgive you for potentially being a threat to my office.” I chuckled and gave him another stroke before giving Lenore a rub, too. “I think he’s figured out I’m not going to hurt him.”

  Either he was satisfied Garret meant no harm or he decided it wasn’t worth the effort, because Edgar Allan Paw resumed napping on my foot.

  “Good. I’m glad he’s settling in with you. Truth be told, if he wasn’t going home with you, he’d probably be going home with me, and I have no idea how I’d deal with a second cat because my wife’s mildly allergic, but she can’t say no to rescues, either. Thank you for sparing me from having to tell my wife we would be having a kitten to add to her allergies to go with the cat we already have.”

  “It seems Edgar Allan Paw has a line of people wanting to take him home.”

  “Yeah, my sister has an eye for the suckers. I’m a sucker, Jacob’s a sucker, and you’re now a confirmed sucker.”

  “It’s true, I really am. What can I do for you?”

  “It was deceptively quiet in here, so I wanted to check in.”

  “I’m almost done with the outstanding invoices, and they look clean. I’ll be sending the digital copies back to the firm today so they can be paid and give them instructions on how to record their payment status so we don’t lose extra time dealing with them. Some of these will be due in the next few days, and I’d rather not disrupt their operations more than necessary. I don’t usually audit in-process accounts, but I can work around it to make sure everything is correct.”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t too thrilled that there were open invoices in the lot, but with your work history, I figured you could handle it. If you find any past due, please let them know right away so they can handle it. I was warned the accounting might be bad enough to have past due invoices.”

  “So far, everything has been really, really tidy. The issues aren’t with Miss Meltrew’s men, but rather with things outside of her control at this point in time. That doesn’t mean I won’t find anything questionable once I start going through paid invoices, but I’m starting to hope I might get through the outstanding invoices without wanting to cry, commit any felonies, or otherwise lose what’s left of my mind.”

  “I like that you are openly acknowledging this job has resulted in at least some parts of your mind leaving the premises. To be fair, I’m pretty sure there’s not much left of my mind following the general description of this job. While this isn’t going to influence your work right now, it seems that there might be a bigger issue in that company that will need to be addressed.”

  “Please tell me they weren’t operating an illegal sex operation of some sort. The inclusion of prostitutes and sex toys could easily indicate that.”

  “Not quite.”

  “Then what?”

  My boss sighed and bowed his head. “I don’t want to say it.”

  “Now I really need to know.”

  “Insider trading of publicly owned adult entertainment companies. So, technically, while it involves the sex industry, they’re corporate firms operating legally, although there’s the possibility of illegal activities.”

  “That would explain the prostitutes and sex toys, though,” I replied.

  “Unfortunately.”

  “There are publicly traded adult entertainment companies?”

  “Yep.”

  I frowned, my brows furrowing. “But why?”

  “Sex sells, and people have faith in sex selling, so they perc
eive it as a safe stock to invest in.”

  I considered that and shrugged when I realized that was a damned good reason for keeping stock in an adult entertainment company. “So, this is going to be even worse than I thought?”

  “It’s going to be even worse than I thought, and I went in expecting it to be pretty bad. The company management wants a good idea of how bad it will be on the accounting front so they can be prepared for any and all fallout. When you review the invoices, keep in mind there has been garnering of favor among some invoicing employees and insiders at the various associated adult entertainment firms. I’ll be emailing you with a complete list of all known companies dealing with adult entertainment. I’ll warn you. There’s a lot of them.”

  “There are?”

  “Sex sells really well.”

  “Someone should probably tell our client that while sex sells, they shouldn’t be selling it without the proper permits and legal coverage.”

  “Or buying it.”

  I bit my lower lip so I wouldn’t laugh.

  “Go on, Hope. Laugh. I’ve been doing it all day. Every time I think this couldn’t possibly get worse, it does.”

  “Instead of Debbie showing Dallas a good time, we have Meltrew taking over Manhattan, and it only goes downhill from there.”

  My boss snorted. “That’s one way to put it. While I have you here, I did get ahold of Mr. McCarthy, and he’ll be free as early as six tonight along with his wife, but there’s a catch.”

  “What catch?”

  “Unbeknownst to him this morning, his wife got a new pet, and she needs to bring it with her. It will stay in a container unless you want to say hi, but she’d need a place to plug in a heater for it, as it doesn’t like getting too cold.”

  “What sort of pet is it? A snake? A lizard of some sort?”

  My boss sighed. “It’s a spider.”

  I frowned. “A spider?”

  “It’s a very big spider.”

  I could handle a spider if it was in a container. If it escaped or jumped at me, that’d be another story. “If it’s in a box or something, I don’t care. I’ll try to make sure Edgar Allan Paw and Lenore don’t bother it.”

  “That leads me to the next issue.”

  Uh oh. “Haven’t we had enough issues for one day?”

  “I made the mistake of telling Jacob about the spider.”

  While I had only met my new landlord once, I could guess how the rest of my night would work out, and it involved another hangover. “Jacob wants to meet the spider, doesn’t he? Garret, he’s not a reasonable man when it comes to pets. I figured this out last night while listening to the various perks he offers pet owners.”

  “He offered to let you use his office for the meeting, and he wants to meet your new dog and cat, too. Just smack him if he tries to adopt them.”

  Well, it wasn’t far from my hotel, which would make everything convenient for me. “Okay. I don’t have a problem with that. Parking won’t be fun around there, but it can work. I’ll try not to smack him, but I might growl menacingly.”

  “I have a difficult time imagining you being menacing, Hope. Jacob will let you and the McCarthys into the parking garage for the meeting, and he’ll give you access to the clubhouse or the guest area on the lobby level if you want to get in some pool, too.”

  Even if he got me drunk and hung over again, I decided I loved my new landlord. “I’m game if they are.”

  “I’ll let them know, and I’ll bring over instructions on what to tell the security guards when you enter the parking garage. Thanks for being game to take on so much at once, Hope. I think this is going to make the next few weeks hard on you, so if there’s anything I can do to help, let me know.”

  I pointed at my new dog, who kept a close eye on my boss. “I did not have a dog yesterday. I have a dog today. As far as I’m concerned, everything is worth it. Thank you for bringing him in. I do appreciate it, and I think he’s going to be perfect.”

  “And when he passes away, I’ll talk to my sister about a younger puppy that’ll match well with Lenore. She’s a sucker for the old ones, and she didn’t want to see him stay in the shelter any longer. A few months is a long time for an old man like him.”

  “Oh. Adoption forms. Aren’t there adoption forms I should fill out? Isn’t the shelter expecting them back?” I hesitated. “I really don’t want to give them back or even take them anywhere near the shelter to handle the paperwork.”

  “There is, but it’ll be easy. My sister will fill out the papers, you’ll make sure they’re right, and you’ll sign. The shelter is aware Edgar Allan Paw and Lenore would be either fostered or adopted, and considering how much it costs to feed him, they’re happy.”

  I bet. “Okay. I can work with that. Is there anything else I should know for today?”

  “I think that about covers it. I’ll be back shortly with the directions for the garage, when Jacob will be expecting you, and the probable time the McCarthys will show up.”

  “Sounds good.”

  I waited until my boss left before regarding my new pets with a raised brow. “Things just keep getting weirder, guys.”

  Edgar Allan Paw took Garret’s departure as a sign to return to his nap, and Lenore joined him. I returned to work to cram in every second I could before I needed to head to my future home to get the groundwork on my second accounting assignment started.

  Fourteen

  I considered running away from her pet.

  Alice McCarthy’s pet spider was larger than her hand, and it crawled up her arm while she cooed at it. The bright pink color startled me, and I gaped at the arachnid and its red-haired owner, astonished anyone could be so happy while a hairy beast from some spider hell crawled all over her. Her expression, soft despite the scars crossing one side of her face, implied she loved little more than having an eight-legged hairy beast exploring its way to her shoulder. The man with her seemed more bemused by her behavior and unconventional pet than anything else.

  I couldn’t decide if Jacob wanted to run away or cuddle with the tarantula.

  Fortunately for me, my old man of a dog preferred lounging at my feet, and Lenore stuck to her fluffy buddy better than any glue I’d ever used. “You must be the McCarthys,” I greeted, keeping a careful hold on both leashes so there wouldn’t be a feline-canine-arachnid incident in the lobby. “That is one very large and pink spider.”

  “She’s an old Mexican pink, and her previous owner passed away. She’s really friendly, and she’s used to being handled. She’s been displaced, so I let her out for a few minutes since the lobby here is warm enough for her. You don’t mind she’s out?”

  Unlike my new landlord, I absolutely would not reveal I considered running away from her pet. “As someone who is adopting an old dog because I couldn’t stand the thought of returning him to a shelter, I fully understand why you wouldn’t want to keep your new pet in its… cage?”

  “I have a plastic tub for her with a heat pad and a mini habitat inside for her until I get her home. I put her in a carry tub when in the car, as that protects her. She might fall if she’s loose in the bigger tub when we’re driving, and she’s old enough I’m not sure how well she’d handle a fall. One of my friends is at our place setting up her new tank now. She’s huge for her species, so she’s probably near the end of her lifespan. Lance is being a good sport. He even held her for a few minutes.”

  Lance winced. “I stood like a statue and tried not to whimper while she crawled all over me, Alice. That’s hardly being a good sport, and I don’t really call it holding. But she is friendlier than your devil of a spider Julian keeps coming over to visit because he misses her. You should just give that terror to him. Please put your new baby away. I’m terrified she’ll jump and get hurt, and the last thing I need today is my wife crying because a spider was injured.”

  “Don’t say such terrible things about Boomer. She’s a great spider. And Ruby is being perfectly well behaved.”

  “Bo
omer wants to kill you, and the jury is still out on Ruby.”

  “Boomer wants to kill everybody. The only thing Ruby here would kill is her dinner. She’s a perfectly sweet spider. You just need to move slow and keep to her pace is all.” Alice took her time strolling across the lobby to the security desk, where a large, plastic tub waited. She eased her hand beneath the massive spider and transferred her to the container before securing the lid. “There, you big wuss. She’s safely in her container now. Just because she’s a little bigger than the others doesn’t mean she’s going to crawl over your face and eat you tonight.”

  “But are you really sure about that?”

  “She likes bugs, Lance. You’re not a bug. You’re too big to interest her. She only cares if you plan to feed her bugs. Now, if you withhold her dinner, she might have a problem with you.”

  “Please feed your latest demon on time every day.”

  I bit my lip so I wouldn’t giggle at the man’s plea. “If my opinion matters, she’s a very pretty spider. I had no idea spiders came in that color.”

  “She’s huge for her species. They’re usually smaller, which means this old girl has had someone taking very good care of her over the years. Lance isn’t going to be happy about having to share his reading room with her, but it was the only place we could squeeze in a large enough habitat for her. Your dog is very pretty. What’s his name?”

  “Edgar Allan Paw, and his kitten is named Lenore. They came as a matched set, and they were found together. Lenore doesn’t seem to like people all that much, but she has tolerated me as long as I keep her with her old man.”

  “That is so cute. What breed?”

  “I think he’s a Great Pyrenees, and she’s a ragdoll. She’s around three months old, and he’s nine, so he’s a tired old man. Honestly, tired old man is my speed for a dog right now, as I’ve never had one before. He’s like a dog on training wheels for me, I guess. I’ve never had a cat before, either.”