Page 4 of Furever Loyal
In Haley’s estimation, it would be incredibly stupid for the thief to do something like that, but she knew those who broke the rules often were. She had no time for people like that, and if she could expose one of them, it would be her pleasure. Haley enjoyed following the rules and hated those who broke them to get ahead. That was wrong.
“What do you have?” she asked, her eyes flicking over the screen.
“The numbers here add up,” she said, pointing to the totals. “But this is the recorded number of transactions in the month.”
“Okay?” She wasn’t following.
“Look at how many lines of transactions there are,” Danielle pushed, pointing to the screen.
Haley frowned. “They don’t match up.” She started scanning the transactions. There were hundreds, but it didn’t take them long to find one that jumped out like a neon sign.
“Well, holy shit. That stupid idiot.” She glanced at the name on the file, jotting it down on her desk. “I’ll be back.”
She went to her private office and picked up the line, dialing Kaelyn’s number.
“Hello Haley. Do you have anything for me?’
She nodded. “I do. It was well hidden, but since we know what we’re looking for, we were able to spot it.”
There was silence on the other end as Kaelyn processed the information. Haley turned to look out the window at the landscape. The first snow was starting to drift down, and the orangish tint of the nearby lamps and streetlights was casting wild shadows all over the place as the late evening descended upon them. It was almost quitting time, but she suspected tonight would require overtime. Again.
Thankfully, she had no plans to cancel.
“I need to see it,” Kaelyn said at last, her voice heavy.
Haley couldn’t begin to understand the pain her client must be feeling. She was aware there had been massive shakeups lately. The sheer number of accounts she’d been told to close and fold into the main account told her that much. On top of that, however, to find out that one of her own had stolen from them? That had to cut deep.
She struggled to find words, to try and sooth Kaelyn, but couldn’t. She didn’t know what to say. Speaking her mind seemed like a bad idea, but Haley felt she had to dosomething. She couldn’t just act coldly neutral about the entire thing. She liked Kaelyn.
The woman was nice, if a little scary, especially with the massive bodyguards she always travelled with. The huge men were easy on the eyes, but in person exuded an air of lethality that always made her feel antsy. Haley wasn’t looking forward to them coming to her office again.
“I’ll have it ready for you when you arrive,” she said. “I’ll keep digging into it in the meantime, to see if there’s more we might have missed, anything prior to this.”
“No.”
Haley’s mind ground to a halt. “Pardon?”
“I need you to come to me. Today. To the Manor.”
Her throat scraped against itself as she tried to swallow, everything suddenly gone dry. “I’m sorry? Could you repeat that?”
“You must come to me. I cannot leave here for some hours yet. You must come to me as soon as you can.”
Haley inhaled, trying to pull herself together. “Um, okay. I can do that. I’ll, uh, I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Thank you, Haley. I knew I could count on you.” The Queen hung up.
Haley sat down in her plush office chair, one of the few luxuries she’d allowed herself after taking over from Mr. Richards, her late boss and the founder of House Accounting.
“Shit.”
Ursidae Manor was the place of operations for High House Ursa, the office, home, and she was suremuchmore, for hundreds of its employees. That in itself was unusual, but not too weird.
It was also extremely tough to gain access. This would be her first time, and not only had she not been invited, she’d beenorderedto go. There was no getting out of it. Into the heart of the beast, in a way. Haley had no idea what the hell she was going to see, but she was immediately terrified of the entire thing. The building was massive, she knew that from the costs spent on its upkeep.
Well, you’re going to find out all you could want to find out about it, and more, very soon.
She punched a button on her phone. “Danielle. I need you to put all that information onto a thumb drive and lay it out as simply as possible. I’m going to see Kaelyn, and don’t want to have to spend forever explaining things.”
