I followed D up the stairs to his bedroom. Like the rest of the house, it was massive and cold. The oversize four-poster bed was beautiful, but somehow didn’t look comfortable. Much to my surprise, it was very much so as I got undressed and snuggled in beside him. He didn’t try to make love to me, instead just kissed me on the cheek and rolled over to go to sleep. I was surprised to find I felt disappointed. Was he just stressed about all that was going on, or was it an indication that he now knew what I was about and that part of us would now be over?
I tossed and turned a bit before finally settling beneath the covers and drifting off to sleep. When the morning came, I awoke to find D already out of bed and dressed. He was pacing the hallway near the bedroom door and talking to someone on the phone. I could only make out bits and pieces of the conversation.
“I know. I can’t waste time on this, and you can’t bring anyone else in on it. You are the only one I feel one hundred percent confident that I can trust. Dig and dig deep. Get back to me as soon as you can.”
I pretended to still be asleep when he came back in, unsure of what I should say after last night’s conversation. He surprised me by sitting on the edge of the bed and smoothing my hair lightly.
“Wake up, Janessa. We need to get to the casino.”
I rolled over and looked at him, noting again how gorgeous he was. I wanted him, but I knew it wasn’t going to happen, not now. Maybe not ever again. There was a certain sadness that came with that thought, a sadness I tried to ignore. Nodding at him, I climbed out of bed and got dressed.
“I laid a clean toothbrush out on the bathroom counter for you. There are plenty of toiletries in the cabinets and on the counter for various uses. Take whatever you need.”
“Thanks. I’ll hurry as best I can. I just need to freshen up a bit before we go.”
“Okay. I’ll wait for you downstairs. I can knock out a few more phone calls while I wait.”
I hated that I wouldn’t be within earshot for those, as I might learn even more than I had already. I let out a huge sigh as he left me alone to finish getting ready for the casino. Fifteen minutes later and we were on the way. D looked incredibly agitated so I refrained from talking to him. No doubt whatever phone conversations he had shared weren’t ones that had set well with him. When we arrived at the casino, he made a beeline toward his office with me in tow. We went directly to the filing cabinet and pulled my father’s file. D spread it out across his desk to look at.
“It’s not an employee file.”
“It looks like one.”
“Yes, it does. It looks like he was hired to do day labor for the casino.”
“Yes. You don’t consider that employment?”
“No. He never worked here. Hold on. I’ll show you.”
D reached into the filing cabinet and pulled another file, spreading it out alongside my father’s. He looked over at me and waved his hand across it for me to look.
“See anything odd?”
I looked at the two files closely. It took a moment, but it quickly became clear what he was talking about. Other than the name and address, the information for both men was identical. I looked at him with a puzzled expression, understanding what I was seeing but not sure why it existed.
“They are fake employment files?”
“Yes. That is exactly what they are.”
“I don’t understand. Why would you have fake employment files on the two men?”
“Because someone in this organization is trying to cover their tracks. They set up fake employment folders and I’m guessing fake withdrawal entries for cash day labor. It explains some of the missing money.”
“How did you know that my father’s was fake so quickly, before looking at the other one?”
“Because I recognize the address used on the form. It’s for an empty building down by the waterfront where day laborers used to congregate in hopes of picking up odd jobs.”
“Why not just use the men’s real addresses?”
“The guy I bought the casino from, this was his system. He hid funds by ‘hiring’ fake day labor and paying them cash at the end of the day. Not uncommon in this business, and it hides a long list of activities that are best not traceable. There was a stack of partially filled out ones left behind. Besides, using their real addresses is too traceable. There might be a hundred people by the same name in this town, but narrow it down to an actual address and someone could visit them and ask questions.”
“Of course. The forms. Let me guess, these are those same ones?”
“Yep. Someone employed the old method for handing out employee loans.”
“Who all can do that?”
“A number of people are set to withdraw funds for day labor, but this is a nail in the coffin. I just need to find out who made these particular two withdrawals.”
“I don’t mean to be thick, but I still don’t think I completely understand. Why would they do it this way?”
“Simple. They loaned the money to the two men, but logged it as day labor pay instead of a loan. So, when the money was paid back, there was no need to return it. You aren’t going to get day labor pay back. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. The old casino owner did it to divert the money to things he didn’t want on the books. Someone now is using the system to divert money to themselves, I would assume.”
“Does that explain all of your missing money?”
“No. If you hadn’t brought this up, I would have most likely never caught it. I trust these guys and it’s not unusual for them to hire actual day laborers to take care of things like property care, plumbing, things like that. There is no reason for me to miss money that is showing up on the books as paid out to laborers. I’m guessing that there are more of these in that file cabinet and I’m going to find them all. Then the question is going to be whether anyone else died and why. If no one else did, then why those two?”
“The other missing money, it isn’t accounted for in this manner?”
“No. It has just been taken. I’m not really even sure how. It is just missing.”
“Why account for only part of what was taken?”
“I don’t know. Maybe more than one person and one isn’t as smart as the other? Perhaps someone trying to tip me off that something is amiss. It could even be that someone took it for some legitimate club business and just never got the opportunity to account for it to me or Simon.”
“Someone like Jack Knife.”
“Yes. It stands to reason that he was pulling money for something. It might have been legit, and he just hadn’t had a chance to clear it up with me or he could have been rogue, though I find that hard to believe, especially since someone wanted him out of the way very badly. Whoever that person was not only wanted him out of the picture, they wanted him to suffer. They did a very good job of making sure that he did.”
“So, where does all this leave us?”
“Follow the trail. I’m going to go through these files and see who else has ‘worked’ for cash and check it against the cash withdrawals to see who pulled the money. It should give us the answer to at least one portion of my missing money.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to get out there behind the bar and work.”
“D, let me help you.”
“No, Janessa. Go do your job.”
I sensed that there was no use arguing with him about it. It was killing me to know who those withdrawals traced back to, but I would have to wait until he was ready to tell me. I tried to put it out of my mind as I went to work behind the bar and made small talk with the members and guests. The day seemed like it crawled by, and I grew antsier by the moment.