Page 43 of Silent Deception
“Don’t worry, dear. I don’t intend to pounce like your great-aunt Flora. Remember her—with the jangling bracelets and head scarves? She used to smother you with hugs when you were a toddler.” Charlotte rested her hand on Ryan’s cheek. “I think I’ll go back up to the house and turn in early. I’m sure you must have a thousand things to do out here.” With a flutter of her fingertips, she strolled out of the barn, thin and graceful, and as coolly unapproachable as ever.
Her dry humor was still there. The flinty attitude. But something wasn’t quite right, and Ryan just hoped that his premonition was wrong.
* * * *
MINDFUL OF HIS ACHINGshoulder, Ryan lifted yet another battered cardboard box from the floor of the closet in the office and dropped it on the desk in a haze of dust. He kept thinking back to what Kristin had said last Saturday.
What was it like, losing your father and wondering if he’d been lost to a wrongful death? Coming back to a town where rumors still flew about his association with a man many mistrusted or downright feared?
Ryan had grown up on the Four Aces, but he hadn’t been deaf to the whispers and the cautious, sidelong glances. Kids had talked at school and repeated what their parents said.
Most thought Clint had risen to political power through carefully placed cronies and well-spent money. No one doubted that he could still call in favors and influence the future of anyone he chose. And Nate Cantrell, who’d been an occasional employee and who’d also been part of several minor business schemes, had been tarred with the same brush.
The hurt in Cody’s eyes during that football game a week ago had touched Ryan. Having an absentee father like Ted had to be tough enough, and now Cody was aware of the ill will against his grandfather, as well. Poor kid.
Ryan lifted a dozen rubber band-bound manila folders out of the box on the desk, stuffed with yellowed receipts, notes scrawled on scraps of paper and bank statements. There hadn’t been any organization to the previous box he’d gone through, and this one looked just as bad.
He fired up the computer and launched Excel, then painstakingly went through each slip of paper, recording equipment, feed, supplies, services, and sales receipts. He separated them into cattle or horse operations where possible.
By the time he got to the March boxes, he’d developed an uneasy feeling that there were inconsistencies. By the time he got to May, he was sure of it. He printed off what he’d completed for the most recent twelve months and what he’d done so far for the year before, then went through each bank statement, comparing them to every invoice and receipt.
None of it made sense.
There was almost no consistency in the numbers from last year until now. Expenditures were far higher—or missing altogether—and some goods and services had been added in the past year that had never appeared before, from what he could see.
In disgust, Ryan tossed a stack of files back in the box and abandoned the office to watch Trevor and Garrett working some young colts in the outdoor arena.
Garrett glanced at Ryan but kept working his mount in smaller and smaller circles at a lope.
Trevor jogged over to the side of the arena, eased his horse to a stop and shook out some slack in the reins. “What’s up?”
“I’ll trade you jobs,” Ryan said. “I’d much rather work a colt than wade through the mess in that office.”
“It’s my fault, much as anyone’s, I guess. I should have been in the office more.” Guilt flashed in his brother’s eyes. “Oscar was always grumbling about how much there was to do, but I always figured it would all get done, somehow. When Nate came, he seemed so much more efficient that I was just relieved to make him responsible. Put me on a horse or a tractor, and I know what I’m doing. A computer—good luck.”
“How did y’all ever handle quarterly taxes the past few years?”
“Leland, Clint...it all worked out, I guess.”
But a tax audit now would be a nightmare...and the possibility of fines, late taxes, and the levy of interest on overdue payments could deliver a crushing blow to a ranch that already appeared to be on shaky ground. “Did you talk to the accountant who tried to sort this out—the one who discovered the embezzlement?”
“Briefly.” Trevor tipped his hat back and rested a forearm across his saddle horn. “But that was last spring when I was gone for six weeks. Valentina and I were hauling the new stud and some younger stock to the bigger quarter horse shows.”
“I’m finding boxes of old records. Haphazard filing...”
“Yeah, that’s what the accountant said. What you see is how he found it—and he was plumb irritated, too. I hear he stayed at the ranch for two weeks longer than he’d planned. He finally said there was so much missing documentation that he could only guess.”
“I’ve read his report. It’s just what you and Leland said. Huge losses and the lost or altered records were probably a cover-up.”
Trevor stroked the sweaty neck of the buckskin. “We got what we deserved, I guess...but I swear, I always thought Nate was a good guy. Had a run of tough luck over the years maybe, but he always seemed like a straight shooter.”
“I feel bad about that grandson of his.”
Trevor’s jaw tightened. “I had a long talk with Hayden afterward. He knows better than to talk about ranch business with his buddies, so there won’t be any gossip about Cody’s grandpa at school.”
“Cody’s a new kid on the block around here, with a dad who’s a jerk and a grandfather who was probably an embezzler. What kind of male role models does he have? I think we should try to help him a little.”
Trevor nodded thoughtfully. “We can help the boys patch up their differences, maybe...and try getting them together more often.”
