Page 27 of Enticing the Fixer

I sign back into the accounting system and study the numbers. The first program includes all the expense accounts, and each transaction is off by a penny. An outgoing payment might be $.98, but the corresponding transaction in another program is $.97. Which can’t happen. I know. I designed this program. Someone had to have reprogrammed the software and pocketed the $.01 difference.

It’s not much, but when you’re dealing with a multimillion-dollar operation, a penny for each transaction is a lot. I sign out of the expense accounts program and log into the income accounts program. Same thing.

I frown. How about employees? Thirty seconds later, I’m in payroll to discover the same results. You’re looking at thousands of dollars when you add up all the transactions. And that was in thirty minutes.

Chapter Twelve

Kinsley

God, that meeting was worse than the last one. I fall into my chair. My dad’s chair.

I swivel to face the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlook the Missouri river and slam my head against the cushion. This is a mistake. Why did I think I could do this job? I don’t belong here. Not in this office.

Tears sting my eyes, so I squeeze them shut to keep them from spilling over. With all the headaches of resolving my father’s legal issues, planning a funeral, and trying to step into his shoes, I haven’t had a second to mourn his passing. And at this point, I don’t even know how to feel.

Am I sad? Angry? Depressed? In denial? I don’t know. I haven’t cried. I’m too tired to be angry.

I’m intelligent. I know it happened. I identified the body at the morgue. A shiver travels along my spine as the vision of my dad’s waxen face shoves its way into my brain and won’t leave.

No. I’m numb. That’s the only emotion that comes through. Is numb an emotion? The only time I’ve felt anything but empty and angry about life was the few hours I was with Leo. He was like touching a livewire. Brilliant but deadly. And so not a good idea.

I open my eyes and spin back around to face my desk. There. I had ten minutes to grieve and get over all my emotions. Now, it’s time to work.

Twenty minutes later, Valeria traipses into the office carrying a stack of paperwork with her flattering green dress and black low-heeled pumps. The perfection doesn’t end there. Her hair and makeup are impeccable. Between her and her perfect everything, I feel like a frumpy cow.

“Hey, Kinsley.” She smiles, showing off overly white teeth.

“Hey.” I nod and grab the mail from her.

“How was the meeting?” She looks at me expectantly and places her hands behind her back.

“It was fine.”

She arches an eyebrow.

“Fine,” I growl and toss the mail into a heap. The envelopes scatter across the surface. “It was horrible. Mrs. Graham was nice as always while making me look like I’m a four-year-old who needs a helicopter mom. And Mr. Rossi was pushing me to sell again. I’m tired. I’m tired of all the pressure to sell the company. I’m tired of the implications that I’m not capable of running the business.” My shoulders sag. “And it’s not even an implication. He flat-out announces it to the room each time. It’s humiliating.”

What did I just do? I’ve never word vomited my insecurities like this. At least not to anyone in the company.

She lowers herself onto the seat across from me. “You don’t have to pretend everything is working out around me. It’s too hard on your mental health to fake it all the time. I’m here if you need to vent.” She smiles reassuringly. “And I think you’re doing great.”

God, why have I been such a bitch toward her? She’s been a lifesaver more times than I can count, and my dad sang her praises for the last two years of his life.

“Thank you for being a good support and for running the office. I haven’t told you enough that you’ve been a big help to me. And thank you for being my cheerleader.” I pause and sigh. There’s no use pretending there isn’t another potential landmine. “Apparently, that’s a new allegation this weekend regarding a possible data breach. Have you fielded any calls from the media or clients this morning?”

“No.” She shakes her head. “I haven’t heard anything out of anyone.”

“We need to get ahead of this. Contact IT and have them find out if there’s been a breach, how, when, and the full scope of the potential fallout.” I lean forward and place my forearms on the desk. “I need to know everything. And if they’ve let someone breach the system, someone will pay for the mistake.”

“I’m on it.”

I shake my head. “And if it wasn’t a mistake, I need to know the perpetrator’s motivation.” Someone on the inside might be working with Acuity Pharmaceuticals to lower the stock prices.

“There could be a hundred reasons why. Money. Blackmail the company to keep the information quiet. To expose a weakness. To drive down the stock prices. To discredit you. To push you into selling. It could be any of those reasons.”

“And those reasons make me look like a big dumbass.”Shit.I growl under my breath and march to the windows, watching as a boat floats along the river. This was my favorite place to visit when I was a kid.

From the top floor, you can see the riverfront for a mile. I’d come here and watch the brown water as it flowed down the river taking the vessels away until they were tiny ants. Sometimes a speedboat would zip across the river to the edge and fight the current’s trajectory.

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