Quiver & Burn (Surrender to Them 5)

Jett and I took the elevator to the lobby and talked a little more on the way down. He was on his way to pick up breakfast and then the twins were going to visit their mother once rush hour traffic had died down some. I could tell that he cared about his mother a lot, just by the way he talked about her. He was a gorgeous hero that loved his mother—I wasn’t sure there was any way for him to get more perfect. Once we left our apartment building, we went our separate ways, but I thought about him all the way to the office. Truthfully, I was thinking about both of them. I was still distracted by my own thoughts when I arrived at Dunkirk Accounting and started booting up my computer. Once it came online, I saw my co-worker, a slightly older woman named Dana, sitting at her desk with a worried expression on her face.

“Dana, is everything okay?” I looked over at her and tilted my head.

“Yeah, it’s fine—I think. I’m not sure.” She sighed and shook her head. “I know you’re new here, but would you look at something with me? Maybe I just need a fresh set of eyes on this.”

“Sure.” I nodded and rolled my chair across the aisle to her desk. “What are you working on?”

“Mr. Dunkirk asked me to take over the Russo account.” She turned her screen in my direction.

“The Russo account?” I stared at her with a blank look on my face. “I’m not familiar with that one.”

“Right, of course.” She nodded quickly. “Jon Russo is one of Mr. Dunkirk’s biggest clients.”

“He’s trusting you with one of the company’s biggest clients? That’s gotta be a sign that you’re going to have an office upstairs one day.” I

smiled and looked at her screen.

“I thought so too, but I found something that concerns me.” She clicked on the spreadsheet and highlighted a few numbers. “What does that tell you?”

“It—it looks right?” I tilted my head and studied the numbers.

“Yeah, it does.” She nodded quickly. “But, look at that number again.”

“I don’t know what I’m looking for.” I narrowed my eyes.

“It’s an equation.” My lip twisted into a confused stare. “But there shouldn’t be an equation there. That should just be a number that was keyed.”

“Exactly.” She sighed and reached for a folder. “I checked this number against the figures that were submitted, and it looks like someone made an adjustment—one that makes the account look like it’s losing money instead of making it.”

“Why would someone want to make the account look like it’s losing money?” I leaned forward to look at the sheet and confirmed what she said. “The original number is in the equation and then they cut it down significantly.”

“Taxes is the only thing I can guess. I’ve been here long enough to see how the auditing team works. They use an algorithm that runs through the spreadsheet and verifies the numbers. If the number shows up, which the equation allows it to do, they wouldn’t look any deeper.” She leaned back in her chair. “This isn’t an accident. If it’s what it looks like, then it has to be intentional.”

“You have to tell Mr. Dunkirk!” I realized that my voice raised a lot more than I planned, and several people looked over.

“Careful, I don’t want anyone else knowing about this.” She raised her finger to her lips and hushed me. “I’m afraid to say something. This is one of our biggest accounts. If there’s a mistake here, then the whole company needs to be audited.”

“And if it’s intentional—holy crap. That won’t end well.” My eyes opened wide. “Damn.”

“I’m going to do some more checking and make sure there’s nothing that I could be missing here.” She sighed again. “I’ll talk to Mr. Dunkirk if I can’t figure anything else out. You confirmed my suspicions though—I’m not the only one that thinks it’s strange.”

“No, definitely not. It’s very strange.” I nodded and started rolling back towards my desk. “Let me know what you find out.”

“Will do.” She turned her attention back to the computer monitor.

A company like Dunkirk Accounting would have been mostly responsible for their own auditing, as long as they used an independent firm to do it. The SEC would leave them alone as long as there were no obvious violations and their audits were turned in timely. I really hoped what I saw was a mistake and there was an explanation somewhere else in the spreadsheet, but I didn’t have a great feeling about it. It definitely looked intentional. I saw stress on Dana’s face for most of the day, and I was pretty sure she didn’t find anything to suggest otherwise. I had worked so hard to finally land a job that I loved, and I didn’t want to think about what could happen if the issue was widespread. The company would be fined and possibly even shut down. If the changes were done to avoid paying taxes, the repercussions would be even worse. When I finally left for the day, I had a sick feeling in my stomach that wouldn’t go away.

“Hey there, neighbor.” I heard a familiar voice as I stood at my mailbox and turned to see the twins—both of them—approaching.

This is the first time I’ve ever seen them together. Wow, you really can’t tell them apart at all without looking at the tattoos.

“Hi!” I smiled immediately and the feeling from work practically evaporated. “Did you have a good visit with your Mom?”

“Yeah, she’s doing great.” Rand smiled and nodded.

“Awesome. I miss my family. I still haven’t gotten used to not seeing them every day.” I shrugged and sighed. “That’s the price of growing up though.”

“Ah, so you’re not from Atlanta originally?” Jett tilted his head inquisitively.