Page 29 of Love & Other Disasters

Thirteen

Accounting Memo

Effective immediately, all employees will enter their work into our Oracle based accounting system. Do not submit spreadsheets to me. You will receive a link in a separate email from the IT Department and an additional email with login information.

Thank you,

Jordan Harper

“Wow, he’s a man of few words,” Monique said. Her hairstyle had changed into the tight braids all over her head. “Did he ask you to send him your old spreadsheets?”

Violet nodded, returning her attention to her computer even though she wasn’t doing anything. “Yep.” They hadn’t spoken since Monday; it was now Friday. Probably not a positive sign to not speak to your direct supervisor for three days.

“Did you ask him why?”

“I did not.” She didn’t look up. “Did you?”

“Yeah.”

Curious what J.P. had come up with to avoid telling anyone. “What did he say?”

“Something about a glitch in the system, and he needed to check the numbers, but I don’t know...”

“Glitches happen,” she reasoned.

“Sure, but all of this seems off.”

“New management always makes changes.” Violet didn’t know why she was covering for Frat Guy. She should tell everyone that he thought Melvin was a criminal. Then they’d hate him as much as she did.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, just a long week.” And she’d slept little the past few nights, unable to stop her mind from whirling around with everything going on— her personal life and professional life had merged into one giant disaster worthy of federal relief.

“Another cup of coffee?”

“I’m gonna need that.” Violet grabbed her mug and followed Monique toward the coffee.

In the breakroom J.P. stood at the coffee maker, drinking one cup of coffee while brewing another cup.

“What on earth?” Monique whispered, to which Violet shrugged.

J.P. replaced the full cup with the one he’d polished off and added another brew cup to the single-serve maker. He didn’t appear to notice their presence in the breakroom, his usual messy, but on purpose hair looked plain uncombed, the button down shirt untucked from his suit pants; the last time she’d seen him with an untucked shirt, it was her doing.

Heavy bags hung under his eyes, and maybe he hadn’t slept in days. At this rate, he needed a larger coffee maker. Violet’s heart softened a touch at the sad, stressed out man. They’d made a connection, and that’d been a mistake. Jordan Harper was still the enemy. He took both cups full of black coffee and left the room without acknowledging them.

“That can’t be good,” Monique said. “I wonder how long he did that?”

“Nope, not good.” she agreed, studying the coffee selection already knowing what was there. More people, who’d been avoiding the scary looking CFO mainlining coffee, filed into the room for coffee and breakfast.

“It has something to do with those spreadsheets and change of procedure,” she whispered.

Violet shrugged and loaded a pod of French vanilla coffee into the maker. There was nothing else she could say. His disheveled appearance was concerning. She believed he’d review the spreadsheets and realize it all made sense. It all added up. Melvin’s roundabout procedures was caution and nothing more. That he checked all the numbers before entering them into the system, and that’s why things happened that way. It was the process of a control freak and not criminal. But J.P. spent the week locked in his office and did not say a word or even look her way. She’d enjoyed the silence and not the constant reminder of what happened between them, but his absence now seemed ominous.

He’d stared at spreadsheets, bank records, and credit card statements until his eyes crossed. None of it reconciled. Jordan arrived at the office before sunrise and left long after everyone else. He still had a job to do despite his detective work. He wanted to find where it all went, but as he was double-fisting coffee on Friday morning, he admitted that he needed help.

Melvin had his employees creating spreadsheets, sending them to him before he reconciled them, and entered the information into the accounting software. Problem was, these spreadsheets didn’t match the numbers in the system. He reported much lower numbers on assets and much higher numbers on liabilities. Credit card charges not reported. If this was the information the employees were reviewing, then the layoffs blindsided everyone. Yeah, there had been fraud. But was it only Melvin?

A knock on his door brought him back to reality, and his heart flopped. Violet stood there looking pretty. Her chestnut hair was loose, and draped over one shoulder and wearing a long, flowy dress with a sweater to protect against the office chill. Her presence both irritated him and brought out an ache he’d ignored. Too tired to have the strength to keep the sadness at bay. He didn’t have the time to mourn the loss of his stupid expectations.

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