Ashley

I was glad Jimmy didn’t invite me back to his place after lunch on Sunday. That meant I could get to the office early the next morning to start my investigation. Since I had gone through all the balance sheets dating back to the beginning of the company, I could start digging into the information I had. It would make it easier to approach Jimmy with all this if I already had it figured out. I had to know what was going on with his company. When I tallied up all the totals I had jotted in the margins, over twenty million dollars had been manipulated in some way over the years. Whether it was withdrawn, added without notation, or reallocated in terms of stocks, that was a lot of money being played around with.

And I needed something to take to Jimmy before I approached him with it.

I was worried about being the bearer of bad news, but I figured he would accept it well from me. Our personal relationship was good, but our working relationship was even better. He could handle it from me. Then, he’d have the reassurance that I would be there to help him every step of the way. That was the best way to approach this, given the hit he took last weekend in the media, so that was the decision I’d made.

My first stop in my investigation, however, was to the technology level of Big Steps.

I wanted to ask them how many times over the twelve-year duration of the company they had upgraded the systems we all used. And just as I figured, the systems had been upgraded many times. The guys in the department gave me access to the equations used in the Excel program for our balance sheets, so I did my due diligence. I double- and triple-checked the equations to make sure they were correct and had someone help me dig into other areas I thought could be wrong, possibly skewing the numbers like I saw them to be skewed.

But no matter where I looked, nothing was wrong with the program we were using for the balance sheets.

Then, I asked them how many times they upgraded the hardware, the actual machines our programs ran on. Apparently, they had only been upgraded once, six years ago, in fact. And the reason for their upgrade was that the company had taken on so many clients, the hardware could no longer keep up with the software requirements the technology department needed. I asked to see the original order form if they still had it, and I saw on the sheet where both Jimmy and Ross had signed off on it.

So, nothing was wrong with the technology behind the balance sheets.

I thanked them for their time and went back to my office. The only other conclusion I had was that someone was manipulating the money, and we weren't catching it. I kept looking through all the accounts associated with the toggled currency, and I couldn't seem to find a trace of anything. The account numbers were solid, and no nameless accounts had been created. There were no ghost accounts or ones that had been shut down out of nowhere, but there was a set of initials that kept popping up from time to time.

L.R.

The initials weren't attached to the creation of any accounts, but they were attached to the deposits and withdrawals that had been manipulated over the course of time. For every transaction recorded in Big Steps, there had to be an identification number and a username submitted to process the transaction. The problem was, I didn’t recognize the initials, and that was even more unusual because I’d become very familiar with all of them during my time in accounting.

A username was never a simple pair of initials. It was usually a first name, a middle initial, and a last name or some sort of combination that could easily point back to the person who initiated the transaction. It was to help follow where money was allocated throughout the company. There were certain accountants who dealt with specific budgets for the other departments in the company. It was usually easy to determine where withdrawals and deposits were coming from based on the username handling the transaction.

However, I didn't know who these initials belonged to. I couldn't recall any time in the four years I had been with Big Steps that anyone had used “L.R.” as their username. Maybe it meant left-right? Not a username but a set of buttons that had been touched in order to initiate the transaction? Or maybe it was someone who used to work at the company and still had access to things?

All I knew was the initials were attached to every transaction that had been mishandled, and those initials went all the way back to the inception of the company.

Well, it sort of went back to start of the company.

The first three years of the balance sheets didn't have the initials L.R. on them. There were still mishandled transactions, but the username portion of the transaction information was simply blank, which wasn't odd necessarily. The company was in its infancy, and the software was new. People probably assumed it was Jimmy trying to do something or Ross trying to familiarize himself with how everything worked, but I knew better than that.

I pulled up a log of all past and present company employees on my computer and jotted down everyone with those initials. Then, I went back through and jotted down everyone who had the initials “R.L.” Just to be sure. But none of those people made any sense. One of them had worked in Human Resources for two years, another one had been a personal assistant to Ross for six months, and the other one was the four-year-old daughter of someone who worked in the IT department.

There was, however, a nagging sensation in the back of my mind.

When Nina had caught us kissing in Jimmy's office a couple of weeks ago, she made an explicit statement that he would pay for what he’d done to her. She stormed out in a huff, and Jimmy tried to settle me down, but I knew she was a woman who would make good on her word. The initials didn't seem to line up with Nina, but I had problems shaking the idea it might’ve been her behind the discrepancies. I didn't know how those dots were going to fall into place or how those lines were going to connect those dots, but something in the pit of my gut was tugging me in that direction.

And that wasn’t good.

The company was finally getting over the fiasco with Jimmy's social media. His Public Relations department was still trying to get his reputation in a decent place. His lawyers still didn't know who made the threat or where it had come from. What we all knew was that it had caused so much turmoil and distress, the public was now in an uproar. The lawyers were working as fast as they could so Jimmy could make good on his word and seem confident to the public, but the further they dug into the accusation, the more lost they became.

Kind of like I was with these balance sheets.

All I knew was that I needed more time than what I spent in the office. I needed more time to dig into this without the possibility of Jimmy hovering over my shoulder. Whether this was tied to Nina or not.

So I stuffed the balance sheets into my bag and headed for his office.

“Jimmy?”

“Good morning, Ashley. What can I do for you?”

“Would it be possible for me to have the day off?” I asked.

“Has something happened with your mother again?”

I didn’t want to lie. I didn’t have to have to look him in the face and lie to him about what was happening, but this was my responsibility. At least it had been when Mr. Brent threw those balance sheets back down on my desk. That was the first stop I needed to make. I needed to ask that man why he felt the need to pass these things off to me even though I’d been promoted.

“I wanted to go see her, yes. The nursing home called, and she’s a little disoriented. Ornery. They’re hoping I can calm her down before they medically intervene.”

“Then what are you still doing here? I’ll come with you,” Jimmy said.

“If it’s okay with you, I think I need to do this on my own. If she doesn't remember you, it might only agitate her more. Sometimes, having me there during these spells makes things worse, but sometimes, it makes it better. If she doesn’t even remember meeting you ...”

“It’s okay. Whatever you need. Take the day and let me know how she’s doing, okay? Promise?”

I felt my stomach fall to my toes as I looked into his eyes full of sympathy and understanding and a desire to help. I felt terrible. I felt like I was hiding something from him, but with his reputation on the mend and his hunt for his accuser still taking place, the last thing I wanted to do was flood his world with more stuff to worry about.

I could take care of this on my own. After all, my initiative is what got me this job.

“I promise,” I said. “I’ll call you soon.”