My flight was scheduled for seven, so I was at the airport by six to check in.
Sitting in the departure lounge, I checked my phone for the six millionth time only to see that Beck still hadn’t replied. I wondered how long he’d be mad. This was our first fight, so I guess I’d be finding out soon enough how long he could hold a grudge.
I nibbled on the bagel and sipped at the coffee I’d gotten at one of the small restaurants in the food court as I people watched, which I’d always loved doing, wondering what kind of lives everyone had. But as I finished eating and had almost drunk all my coffee, I soon grew bored because there weren’t a ton of people in the airport at that hour. Checking my phone, I saw there was still thirty minutes before we could board, so I settled in to play a mindless game on my phone. Just then I saw the woman seated across from me stand and toss her New York Post onto one of the seats to the side then she ambled away. I got up and grabbed the paper hoping it’d help to pass the time until I boarded.
I read several articles in the news section, feeling it was my duty to know a bit of what was going on in the world, before finally flipping to the pièce de résistance, Page Six, the gossip section. The headline read “A TITillating Evening” over a picture of a bare-breasted gorgeous girl—I had to look twice thinking she was Margot Robbie—with her nipples pixelated out, smiling at the man on whose lap she sat and whose face her boobs were about to smother.
I read the article about what they called “reject models,” who in my eyes were just as beautiful as any model I’d ever seen. Poor girls. There’d been a fashion show last night at the 69th and I read that it had raised a lot of money for several charities. I scanned a couple other stories, “Famous animal lover under fire for dating avid hunter,” “Neil Patrick Harris outshined by co-star at premiere,” before glancing back at the photo of the Harley Quinn lookalike when something caught my eye. Looking more closely, my heart skipped a fucking beat as I realized the man in whose lap the woman sat was Beck!
What the actual fuck?
So that’s why he hadn’t answered his phone. He’d obviously been busy with boobs. Huh. I snapped a picture of the image with my phone then texted it to him.
Text Message—Wed, Jan 12, 6:48 a.m.
Me: I see you were busy last night, which is why you didn’t text or call me back. Stick to not doing either. I’m good with it
Then I hit “send.”
“Ms. Chapman, we’re so happy you’re here,” Mr. Solomon, co-owner of a nationally known software company greeted me when I walked into the office building. He was very tall and appeared to be in his late sixties or early seventies, and he reminded me a lot of Prince Philip.
“Hello, Mr. Solomon. I’m happy to be here.”
He guided me to the elevator making small talk, asking me if my flight had gone well and how the weather in New York City was. On the twelfth floor, we disembarked and he led me to an empty office where boxes of ledgers were stacked on a table.
“As you know from our chats, we’ve somehow misplaced almost eight-million dollars.” He let out a sarcastic laugh as he pulled one of the books out of a box. “Gloria Martin, our in-house accountant, will be in shortly to assist you with any questions you may have. And please feel free to come see me in my office,” he pointed to the corner across the large cubicle area, “if you need anything else or call my secretary at extension 101.”
He left me to do my thing and when Gloria came in. She was a lovely redhead slightly on the heavy side but she carried herself well. After introducing herself, she shook her head sadly. “I’m going to tell you right now the culprit is the CFO, James Solomon, Jr., Mr. Solomon’s only son. Neither Mr. Solomon nor his partner, co-owner Jefferson Rothwell, would listen to anything I said. As a matter of fact, I’m shocked that I still have a job as angry as Mr. Solomon was at me. But James is his only child and he wouldn’t have it. I’m telling you, it’ll be like a damned flare gleaming out at you when you see it. Let me know if there’s anything you need. My extension is 357.”
She left me to it and, boy, was she right. After only thirty minutes, it all stood out like a sore thumb.
First of all, James, Jr. was making over eight-hundred-thousand dollars a year as the company’s CFO, while his father and the other owner were being paid two-hundred-thousand each. And secondly, I’d never seen so many workers’ compensation claims in my life. It appeared that good old Junior had filed at least twenty-five false claims over the past five years and was pocketing that money as well. So not only was he stealing this money, he was costing the company hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance payments, which was also considered insurance fraud.
I picked up the phone receiver and dialed Gloria’s extension.
“Gloria Martin, how may I help you?” she answered.
“Hi, Gloria, it’s Birdie. Can I get you to come here, please?”
“You bet.” Thirty seconds later, she came inside the office smiling and nodding. “You caught it all, didn’t you?”
“Not to discount your or my skills, but I think a first-year accounting student could’ve caught this.” She chuckled. I looked at her and shook my head. “He’s the highest paid CFO I’ve encountered. And how in God’s name has he not been caught with all the workers’ comp claims?”
She huffed out a laugh. “Right? I think it’s all been pure luck.”
“Looks like it.” I let out a deep sigh knowing I had some very bad news to report. “Would you mind coming with me to talk to Mr. Solomon?”
“Not at all,” she stated, and followed me to the large corner office. “Mr. Rothwell’s in today,” she whispered, nodding at the opposite corner office. “Do you want me to see if I can get him in there too?”
“That would be great,” I replied, dreading having to tell such a nice man as Mr. Solomon was, that his only son was a thief.
But that was part of my job. For the most part, I found it fun because it was challenging and sometimes even exciting when I solved the problem. But then there were times like this when what I’d found would likely break someone’s heart.
When Mr. Rothwell entered the office, I introduced myself then we all had a seat and I proceeded to tell them the same thing Gloria had tried telling them from the start.
After leaving the meeting, in a cab back to the Park Hyatt, I called to book a flight home the next day, thinking this had really been a wasted trip. In my hotel room, I cried. Poor Mr. Solomon. I’d felt horrible having to tell him the truth about his son but it was my job. The way his face had fallen when I’d shown him the numbers had broken my heart. And the son hadn’t even been there since he and his family were vacationing in the Bahamas with stolen money, no doubt! Ugh. Sometimes I really hated people.
I showered and changed into jeans and my favorite NYU hoodie. It was cold, but I walked exactly one block over to a tavern where I had the best freaking char-dog in my life along with a cold beer and watched basketball on TV. It was great. When I finished, I walked the other direction, past the hotel and a block over to the historic water tower, going inside to check out the art gallery. I’d stayed until it closed at 6:30 then walked back to the hotel, but not wanting to go to my room just yet, I went up to the seventh floor and at the swimming pool sat in a lounge chair watching a couple children playing in the water while their mother looked on.
Even though the kids were screaming as they played, I felt a simple sort of peace, which I knew was the result of the fact that I’d turned my phone off after sending my last text to Beck, meaning I hadn’t had to deal with reality. It was now in my hoodie pocket but I hadn’t felt like turning it back on. So I hadn’t.
An hour later I finally went to my room and decided I had to face the music. Turning on my phone, I waited for the home screen to appear and wondered what would be worse: Beck having texted back to tell me he was in love with the Harley Quinn lookalike and they were running away together, or if he hadn’t texted or tried calling me back at all. I decided that nothing from him would be worse.
When my phone was fully on, I entered the password, and pulling up the home screen saw that I had fourteen text messages and five missed calls. That was nice and all but still didn’t ease my mind because maybe none of them were from Beck.
“Suck it up, Birdie, Jesus,” I muttered, forcing myself to hit the text button.
I sighed in relief when I saw that every message was from Beck.