Chapter 35

Grant

I couldn’t believe my eyes as Paul slid the documents into my hand. The I.P. addresses from the changes in the monetary transactions had finally been tracked, and they were all the same. They all matched the I.P. address of the unauthorized laptop that had been smuggled into the building.

The same laptop registered with the name A.M.House.

“And you’re sure this is correct?” I asked.

“I double- and triple-checked,” Paul said. “I even ran the latest altered transactions from last week. They’re all coming from the same I.P. address. This I.P. address.”

I still had no fucking clue what this had to do with the company, which meant there was a part of this puzzle I was still missing. Was he simply using the purchasing of the company as a cover? Maybe he thought he could turn all our heads long enough to skim off a desired sum before purchasing the company himself?

Was this about gaining power back somewhere?

“Is there anything else you need me to do?” he asked.

“No. This was what I needed,” I said. “Thank you. You can go, if you’d like.”

“I’m a phone call away if you need anything else,” he said.

I knew the bad company deal Alex was pushing and the transactions were linked. I just had to keep digging. I opened up my desk and drew out the folder that had all the information I’d gathered. I began to sift through it.

I was looking through all the highlighted transactions, all the paperwork that had bounced between Alex and the company before I went to New Orleans. There were rough figures thrown out, but nothing substantial that should’ve ever told Alex this deal was as stable as he thought it was. I circled things in a red marker and set them to the side, slowly backtracking a theory that had finally flooded the forefront of my mind.

Alex was never one to take without giving back. He hated being indebted to people. He started this company without a lick of debt, so he owed nothing to anyone. Hell, this was a man who didn’t even want a fucking board of investors until his late wife convinced him otherwise. He wanted to be completely self-made and self-sufficient.

Which meant if Alex was taking these funds, he wasn’t going to take them without a way to replace them.

I went over the numbers Alex fed me and recalculated them again. Just like I’d found before, they were much lower than what he’d fed me, and I realized that was probably to whet my palate and get engaged in the entire process. I found paperwork already signed by Alex, with signature places for all the men I’d sat in those meetings with.

He’d been so gung-ho for going to New Orleans because he was ready to close on a deal that was only half as lucrative as he told me it would be.

What the fuck was going on?

Then suddenly, a light went off. I brought out a calculator and did a few additions and found that the amount of money that he had already skimmed from the company’s budgets was almost identical to the amount of profit acquiring this company would give us right off the bat. The almost five-hundred thousand that had already sunk into his pocket would be only one-hundred thousand shy of the money we’d make within the first month of the acquisition. That was why Alex wanted this to close to desperately.

That was how he was going to replenish the money. He was going to replace it with the first month’s profits, as well as with a few kickbacks he’d been promised from members of the board of the company. I found insurance paperwork that had already been taken out on the company acquisition, payable to only Alex if the deal went south.

At any other moment in time, this wouldn’t have been a big deal. But the amount of insurance money he’d taken out was absolutely enormous for the type of company Tike Oils was. An insurance policy just to get back what we’d put in would’ve been fine, but this insurance paperwork was filed for a whopping fifteen million dollars.

Alex was planning on cashing in whenever this deal went south, and that was why he’d yanked it from his junior executives.

Raking my hands through my hair, I sat back in my chair. My mind was swirling with all the pieces that were dropping into place, and I just couldn’t believe what the fuck was happening. Alex was embezzling from J&M, had plans to replace it with the money we’d get the first month into this acquisition, then planned to cash in at a whopping eleven million dollars after replacing the four million I intended to invest should we have proceeded with the deal.

I turned myself toward the window as tears crested my eyes. Alex Marks was my best fucking friend, the man I went to when my dreams of my late wife resurfaced. He was the man I’d told I would help after I bought his company. The man I’d opened my home to. The man I played golf with. The man I drank the good scotch with as we sat at his table and talked about anything and everything but work. He was the only man I’d ever found who knew the pain of losing a spouse, and I always knew I could go talk to him if it became too much.

Why the hell would he do this to the company he built from the ground up?

Why would he do this to us?

“Mr. Jacobs?”

Crissy’s voice startled me, but I knew I couldn’t turn around. I had to gather myself before I could look at her. Otherwise, I’d see her father in her eyes. I’d be done for if I turned around, and she would surely be worried.

I didn’t need more emotion linked to her than there already was.

“Yes, Miss Marks?’

“It’s almost five o’clock,” she said. “I just wanted to let you know that I’m packing up to go home. Do you need anything?”

“Yes,” I said. “You for dinner tonight at my place.”

“I can do that,” she said. “First, I’ll have to head home and give the family some sort of excuse. Shoot me your address, and I’ll see you around seven?”

“You mean you don’t remember the way yourself?” I asked, still not turning around.

“I was paying attention to…the view.” I could hear the grin in her voice, and it fluttered my heart. I realized there was nothing that Crissy couldn’t make better. After a realization like that, letting her go would be that much harder.

“I’ll see you at seven sharp,” I said.

I had no idea how I was going to start this conversation with Crissy, but I knew she had to be the first to know. Not just because it was her father, but because of all she’d done in order to get me the pieces of the puzzle I needed. I turned around when I knew she was gone and gathered the papers I’d need to show her. Then I grabbed my coat and set off for my car.

A very special meal with a potent wine would have to be served with this conversation.

A conversation I still didn’t know how I would begin.