Page 47 of Due Diligence

“Do you really?” I asked as I opened the oldest balance sheet in the folder.

“Fuck no.”

His response drew a smile from me. It was the first unprofessional thing he had said all morning, and I was actually grateful for it for once.

My eyes ticked from side to side as I ran through the lines on the balance sheet on the screen. Before long, I tilted my head to the side and said, “You know this isn’t balanced, right?”

I could practically feel the anger spill out of Marcus and radiate through the conference room. He leaned forward, brushing against my shoulder in the process, and frowned at the screen.

“What are you talking about? Of course it’s balanced. The math sums automatically.”

“But you’re double counting current liabilities. You have wages on one line and salary on another, which doesn’t make sense when you had no wages paid out at that time. That means you double counted, and therefore should have ended up with overflow on your assets.”

Marcus frowned, eyes latched onto my laptop screen. “No, I think we had wages at that time.”

“Wages to who? You and Alex were the only ones on staff.”

He pulled his lips to the side. “Shit. Let me take a look,” he said as he leaned over to his right to grab his own laptop from the other side of the table. Then he rolled back towards me in his chair and rested his laptop on his thighs.

“The math is right but the accounting is wrong,” I explained.

“I understand the problem, but what I don’t understand is how I could make an error that was so easy for you to find.” He clicked his tongue as he pulled up the document. “Fucking embarrassing…”

“I just know what to look for.”

Marcus glanced up at me and let out a sigh through his nostrils, his lips still tucked to the side. That glance held volumes: He knew he was wrong and wasn’t unimpressed I sniffed it out like a bloodhound.

After a few minutes of silence, Marcus let out a measured exhale. “I’ve been through three rounds of funding, countlessaudits, and a few board reviews andnot oncehas anyone pointed this out.”

“It’s one year,” I reminded him. “I wouldn’t fret. We’re not going to devalue you over it.”

“I kind of want to fire our accountant though.”

“Weren’t you technically the accountant at the time?”

Marcus froze and dropped his gaze to the side for a moment. He cleared his throat. “We should, uh, move on, yes? More finances?”

I chuckled. “Real smooth.”

“Quiet.”

“You love it.”

“I really do,” he responded before freezing. It was almost like he didn’t intend to say that out loud, or at least forgot he was trying to play me hot and cold. Guiltily, he looked in my direction and gritted his teeth when he saw me staring at him with a bemused expression on my face. “I misspoke there. I meant to say I hate it—and you—with a burning passion.”

“Clearly.”

He raised his chin at my screen. “Next year, please.”

We continued this for the next three hours: I reviewed balance sheets, Marcus explained some of the nuances of the accounting for me, and occasionally I pointed out minor discrepancies. He was right though. The numbers were largely clean and there was nothing I would flag as a concern in any of the balance sheets.

When I finally closed the last one, I turned and looked over at Marcus, who was leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling. With his head tilted back, his Adam’s apple—which I sucked on less than seventy-two hours ago—stuck out.

“How are you doing over there?” I inquired.

He raised his head. “I’m seeing double, Cassie,” he replied. “That was so many balance sheets…But we’re done, right?”

“Not even close. I need to look through your ledgers now.”

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