Page 55 of Bears Behaving Badly
“I know that,” she snapped back.
“Guys?”
“Except you don’t know that, because you’re neck deep in something—bad enough—but you seem equally engaged in keeping me clear of it, which is just dumb and shortsighted and, frankly, a little hurtful.”
“You’redumb and shortsighted.” Annette sighed, then added, “I know. Not my best comeback. Listen. It’s not just the safety issues. This job will break your heart, Oz. Stay in Accounting, where everything is numbers and air-conditioning and a break room that smells like fresh bread.”
“You guys?” David waited until they both looked at him. “We’re doing this in the open and Oz is naked and a bunch of warwolves tried to kill us and, like Oz said…corpses. I know you don’t get a lot of traffic out here, Annette, but this is just begging for trouble.”
“You’re right.” To Oz: “Piles of corpses aside, David and I have things under control.”
David nodded in semisolidarity, hoping he wore the expression of a man with everything under control.
“And so,” Annette concluded with a gesture toward the house, “you can go. You can even borrow something of Pat’s because you were in such a hurry to butt in where you weren’t needed that you didn’t take the time to disrobe properly so I’m sure you could grab a T-shirt or something but I can tell by the look on your face that you’re not inclined to do any of that.”
“No, you well-meaning nimrod!” Oz roared.
“Just as well. Pat would’ve had a fit. No one treats their clothes worse than he does, but God forbid someoneelseshould accidentally—”
“Look!” David called. “I’ve turned around, and I’m walking back down to the studio. Where people can’t see us. And even if they did, it’d take them forever to breach. See? Why don’t you guys follow me? Just for fun. Just to see what happens next.” He wasn’t looking, but he could feel Annette roll her eyes, and
(hallelujah)
heard them fall into step behind him, Oz grumbling a bit as he stepped on a sharp rock.
“Should’ve kept your socks on,” Annette snickered. Which was a pretty great mental image, TBH.
“Annette, I’m not here just to butt…to help. I think I found something. That’s the reason I came. I wasn’t even sure you’d be home.”
“Technically I wasn’t, Oz,” she pointed out.
“But I couldn’t just do nothing.”
“Disagree.”
“And then, the second I got out of my car I could smell blood, so…”
“So you jettisoned good sense and are fortunate you weren’t killed, and then what would I tell Mama Mac?”
Oz laughed. “You’ve just described the week you’re having. And what wouldItell her?”
And then, behind him, a sound that was quickly becoming David’s favorite thing: Annette Garsea, surprised into a giggle.
* * *
“I don’t know what this Lund guy was up to, but he had twenty-two bank accounts, eleven shell corporations, no attorney of record, and his favorite hobby was buying worthless property and hanging onto it, no matter how much or fast it decreased in value.”
Not his favorite hobby, David thought.
“I mean, sure, you can legitimately use them for tax avoidance purposes or to get different kinds of financing—hello, Bill Gates!—butthisguy’s setup? Is weird. The methodology iswayoff. And everybody knows that it’s just a hop, skip, and a pounce from tax avoidance to outright evasion, right?” Taking in their blank expressions, Oz added, “Don’t worry, I’ll take you through it.”
“That only makes me worrymore,” Dev said.
“Aw, don’t be intimidated, you guys! I know forensic accounting sounds sexy—”
Annette made a sound awfully like a snort.
“—but it’s pretty straightforward. And I’m all up to date on my certified-forensic-accountant continuing ed, so don’t worry about that. So! There are shell corporation and there are shell corporations—”
