Page 33 of Just Add Mistletoe

“Let me log into the bank on the laptop,” he said.

Brandy scooted over, and he sat in front of the laptop and entered in his password information. As he scrolled through the dozens of transactions, she said, “Look for amounts that are outside of payday. See where all of these payments are coming out on the first and the fifteenth of the month? Look for anything on other days.”

Malcom paused on a payment that came out a few days ago on the twenty-sixthin the amount of $3,300. It looked pretty innocent since it wasn’t a huge amount and several people in the company made that amount twice a month. Just the date was suspicious. Then he looked at the twenty-fifth and saw another amount of $3,300. In fact, that same amount had been deducted multiple times a month outside of payroll dates.

“Where’s the money going?” he asked as he clicked on the transaction to find out more information. It only had another routing number attached, but no account number, of course.

“It’s going to another bank, but it’s not a direct deposit transaction,” Brandy said. “It’s a manual transfer. Open a couple of the others and see if they’re the same time of day.”

Malcom did so, but they were all different times of the day. He exhaled, his skin prickling. “Payroll is going out to someone in the company who I don’t know about.”

Brandy nodded. “There might be more. But after finding these two issues, I thought it would be a decent place to start.”

Malcom downloaded the most recent bank statement and saved the PDF to the hard drive. “What do you think I should do?”

“I think you have a few choices,” Brandy said. “I talked to Austin about this in very broad terms—I didn’t even mention your name. He once owned a successful company, something to do with data storage. But things with his business partner went south. He recommended hiring a lawyer.”

Malcom felt like he’d been slapped in the face. “That seems extreme. This is my brother and my in-laws.”

“I agree,” Brandy said. “Family’s important. There might be a good explanation, or like you said, lazy accounting. But if there’s fraud, or other things, then you’ll be liable as part-owner of the company.”

Malcom pushed to his feet and paced the small area. His head pounded, and his mouth tasted bitter. He’d been suspicious for a while, but this . . . this shone a spotlight on everything. Was it Bronson? Or was he in on it with his wife? Was it Penny? Was it all three of them?

No one else in the company had access to their accounts.

“I need to talk to my brother,” Malcom said, stopping to face Brandy. “I don’t know if he’ll tell me the truth, but I need to at least have the conversation before I can decide what to do next.”

As soon as Brandy left, he called Bronson. The call went to voicemail, so Malcom left a message, then texted his brother that they needed to meet right away.

Then, because he felt like he might literally go crazy, and he needed to talk this through with someone, he called Lori. The minute she answered, he wondered if he’d made a mistake. It was the middle of the workday for her, and she was probably busy.

“Hey, it’s Malcom.”

“Yeah, I know,” she teased, her voice light. “Don’t tell me you’re bailing on tonight.”

“What? No.” Malcom tried to focus on what she was saying. “I do need to talk to you though. Brandy was just here.”

“Brandy?” she echoed. “Oh, you mean about the financial statements you had her look at?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

“Sounds like the news isn’t good,” Lori said in a softer tone. “What’s going on?”

“Uh . . .” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Are you swamped? I wondered if we could talk in person. I’m waiting for Bronson to call me back. I might have to track him down if he doesn’t respond soon.”

“Sure, are you at your trailer?” Lori asked. “I can come over there and have Marci watch the place. We aren’t busy anyway on account of the rain.”

Malcom hadn’t even noticed it had started to rain. He moved to the window, where raindrops pattered against the pane. “That would be great. Thanks, Lori.”

He hung up and literally watched through the window for her. Moments later, she came out of the shop and opened an umbrella. She crossed the street after checking for traffic, then hurried across the parking lot.

He opened the trailer door as she neared. She was wearing a flowy black dress with black boots that hit just below her knees. Her earrings of choice were white ghosts. Any other day, he might have teased her about them. Not today.

“Thanks for this,” he said, and motioned for her to come inside. After she set the umbrella aside, he offered her a chair.

It took him seconds to pull up the spreadsheets again on the laptop. He walked her through what Brandy had disclosed.

“Wow, I don’t even know what to say,” Lori said in a subdued tone. “This is really rotten of your brother, or whoever is responsible. I mean . . . there’s been a lot of money hidden. I wonder how far back it goes?”

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