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“For you? Always.” He winks at me and a ribbon of warmth unfurls through my abdomen at the way he so effortlessly makes me all warm and gooey inside.
“Okay, I have gone over these cash in and cash out reports for hours, but I cannot make sense of these seven transactions.”
I drop the pile of papers on his desk, placing them in order as I read off which each report is.
“Here you can see that these numbers go with employees, it’s their ID number. I can see that each ID number has the same exact deduction each month into this account here.” I reach for the second report. “So all these employees are individually contributing different amounts, but each amount for each employee is the same each month. It’s an investment account that Pierce set up where employees will donate a percentage pre-tax, and then Pierce does the investing for them.”
“Makes sense.” Beckham nods, following along.
“I have tracked all of the deposits to this account, but what I can’t figure out is, there has been seven different deductions from the investment account to an offshore account. The deductions are varied in amounts and dates. It’s not a quarterly or even monthly transaction.”
His brows furrow as he studies the paper I handed him.
“Did you ask their accounting team to explain?”
I shake my head. “Not yet. I had hoped it was just an error on my part so I told Gretchen to hold off on having one of them reach out to me until after I could go through everything again.”
“Well, looks like you’re still unsure so just have them call you.” He hands the report back to me.
“That’s why I came in here. I wanted to ask you what this company is?” I point to the stock symbol next to one of the withdrawals. “I’ve seen it next to all of the withdrawals and on several other reports.”
Beckham looks at me funny. “Are you serious?”
“Yes,” I say confused.
“That’s SITS, Systems Information Technology Services. That’s Pierce’s parent company, it’s one of your father’s companies, under his wide umbrella of Ramsay Consulting.”
“Wait.” I shake my head as if that will help the information I just received somehow settle into place and make sense. “I knew my father owned Pierce, but I didn’t realize SITS was one of his subsidiaries too. How did I miss that? On other documents it lists Pierce directly under Ramsay Consulting.”
“I’m sure it was just an oversight from their legal department. Maybe some old forms or something.”
“Maybe but that still doesn’t make sense why SITS would be taking out these withdrawals from an employee investment account.” I shuffle through the papers, looking for anything I might have missed that’s right in front of me. “Also, where is this account that these withdrawals are being deposited into? I looked up the routing number and it’s registered as an offshore account.”
Beckham stands and slides his suit coat over his arms before walking toward his en suite bathroom to check his reflection over.
Where the hell is he going that he’s so concerned with how he looks? Or worse, who is he meeting?
I push those thoughts from my head. One thing at a time.
“What are you insinuating, Brontë?”
“I think that Pierce is stealing from their employees.”
Beckham’s hands still on the back of his head as he smooths out his hair. He turns around slowly to look at me.
“You better have solid proof of something like that before you go making accusations, especially during acquisition talks.”
I square my shoulders. “I do have solid proof, don’t I?” I point to the report in my hand.
“No, you have some unexplained accounting error. You need to work with their finance department in grueling detail, asking every possible question before you go burning a bridge with Pierce.” His tone is serious, his eyes wide as he crosses his arms over his chest. “You really think your father would allow that to happen? I know he’s not involved with the day-to-day of Pierce, but they still have to report their earnings and losses. So does SITS.”
“Maybe he’s too far removed or maybe their reporting is wrong. If a company is going to steal from their employees, they’re going to do a damn good job of covering it up, especially if they’re going to risk it being revealed during a merger. Or maybe,” I say a little too confidently, “he’s very aware of it and knows that by selling Pierce to his best friend, it will get overlooked.”
I can see the anger spread across his face. His eyebrows shoot upward, his jaw clenches, and his eyes narrow as a red flush spreads up his neck.
“Now you’re accusing me of being willing to overlook fraud based on a personal relationship?”
Shit, that’s not what I meant, but I shot my mouth off.
