Her gaze softened slightly. “Again, apology accepted. I didn’t see you when I went in. If I had I’d have ignored you.”
“I’ll remember that if we stumble across each other again. I hope we don’t.” Kip stopped suddenly, her internal guilt meter having gone off. She’d just told another lie. Oh, this just wasn’t fair. Even in the cold weather, Tamara Sterling looked as steady as a mountain. A fascinating mountain. Damn, damn and damn.
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Now was not the time to think about how long it had been since she’d been on a date. Telling herself to go get laid wasn’t useful either because she didn’t have the first clue how to do a one-night thing, and that’s what made Tamara Sterling and her strong hands so unfair, that and her uncanny ability to bring out the gibbering fool lurking inside her.
“I have another appointment,” Tamara said, “or we could talk over lunch. If you don’t hit me first I’d even buy.” Her eyes warmed along with a rare smile.
Kip smiled dumbly back, then found her voice. “Wednesday evening will be better. I’ll have a list of most probable suspects by then and I should also know method.”
“Good.” Her expression was abruptly cold.
Taken aback, Kip could think of nothing to say. When it was plain Tamara Sterling was done speaking to her, she turned away, humiliated. One minute smiling, the next glacial.
“Diane! What brings you here?”
Sterling’s voice startled her and she turned in time to see a hearty embrace between Tamara Sterling and Diane Morales, who managed operations in California and Illinois. Was Diane the afternoon and evening appointment?
The two were still embracing, though Kip could see there was nothing more than an embrace. Still...damn and damn, she thought. Collusion makes embezzlement so simple.
She stomped away, her head full of unwelcome personal and professional speculations.
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Chapter FIVe
She grabbed lunch at a soup and salad bar far from the SFI offices. It was still crowded, but she found a seat at the high counter. She was almost finished when someone at her elbow said quietly, “Heya, Kip.”
It took just a moment to recognize the voice. “Hi, Meena.”
“How ya doing?” Her ex was as quietly handsome as always, thick, brown hair slightly tousled, collar of a crisp white button-up open to show off a simple gold chain against her tanned throat.
At the moment there was no sign of the chip on her shoulder labeled Kip Barrett, lousy girlfriend.
“I’m doing great.” It had been nine months, she thought, or maybe more. How quickly they had passed. “How are you?”
“Equally great. It was a surprise to see you out in the daylight.”
It sounded a little bitchy, but Meena’s tone wasn’t overly arch.
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“I’m actually between appointments.” There was an awkward silence and Kip fumbled for a topic. “How’s your mom?”
“Also great, and I’m not just saying that. Um... I’m getting married. Mom’s over the moon as you can imagine.”
“Oh. Congratulations.”
“My girlfriend has a job waiting in Iowa, so we’re going to settle there and we can get married, so...”
“Sincerely, all my best wishes.” Kip rose to give Meena an awkward hug. “You deserve the best.” And that sure wasn’t me, she added to herself.
“Thank you. I’m glad I ran into you. I think I was mean when I left.”
“Well, I know I was thoughtless.”
“It’s the job,” Meena began, then she raised a hand. “No need to go down that road. It was good to see you.” She walked away without looking back.
Kip finished her salad in an odd funk she knew would pass.
But for a few minutes she had visions of a house and a white picket fence and two women living there who made each other their priority. What was wrong with that? Nothing at all. So why didn’t she want it?
There were no answers forthcoming, and she didn’t really have the luxury of time to puzzle about it. That’s right, she told herself, if you keep up this work pace you won’t have time to figure out that you don’t have time to be happy.
She left the cafe and realized she didn’t even recall what she’d eaten. A glance at her watch told her she had just enough time to finish at the two remaining banks.
She finished up at the last bank before its old-fashioned three o’clock closing. At home again she spread out her notes and copies and fired up her laptop. She logged her activity, the documents she’d gained and wrote a quick summary of her impressions to date.Formalities tended to, she began her real work by comparing the statement copies she’d collected from the banks to the copies 56
attached to the internal reconciliations. She worked on the largest accounts first and noted the dates and codes for any transactions that had been altered before the accounts were reconciled at SFI.She absentmindedly tore open a frozen low-fat dinner and popped it in the microwave. Her back ached from hunching over the paperwork, so she did jumping jacks to get her blood going.
She supposed a grown woman should feel a little silly doing jumping jacks, but it was her own kitchen and she was used to doing as she liked on her own turf.
She ignored the little voice that said she wasn’t getting any younger and before too long, she’d be so set in her ways there wouldn’t be room for anyone else. Her stubborn adherence to her own ways of doing things had been one of the reasons she and Meena had cooled to each other from the moment Meena had moved in. She had tried to change—but, she knew, only to a point.
She devoured the steaming dinner and rewarded her virtuous meal with a bag of M&Ms, sorted by color. She now had a good list—an all-inclusive one she hoped—of the accounts that were missing funds. The doctored bank statements had been changed in two ways: balance summaries changed and electronic funds transfers that had been altered to smaller amounts or obliterated.
The statement in her hand was a prime example, and she hoped represented the thief’s methodology. On the 5th, 13th, 21st and 28th days of every month there were standing withdrawals from several sweep accounts, bringing money into the account. She could then trace the money out to payroll accounts in New York, Illinois and California. Standard stuff.
But last month the very next transaction after each authorized one she couldn’t trace to its landing place—the amount in question disappeared to a destination not listed in SFI’s general asset ledger. The amounts varied and weren’t singly very large.
They added up, though.
If she had to guess—and she didn’t like guessing—their thief had appended additional instructions to the existing, already 57
approved withdrawal demand, then made sure the transactions weren’t discovered during account reconciliation. It could be one person doing both. It could be one or more people at SFI—
someone with the authority to sign a transaction order that would fool the bank, and someone with ready access to the account statements.
It was time for ETO. Time to eliminate the obvious hows and whos.
She typed in her list of signatories for each account, then sorted by last name. The list of people who were signatories on every affected sweep account was short—only four. It should be simple to eliminate them as suspects who acted alone, at least. If she cleared them all, it meant focusing on the next most obvious how and who: any of these people working together or with an accomplice she didn’t yet have on a suspect list.
ETO number one was Tamara Rebekkah Sterling. She privately owned SFI as a limited liability corporation of which she was the only shareholder. All net worth was her personal asset and she could draw any amount she liked from several company accounts and need not pay it back. Of course the IRS would want her to pay taxes on the income, but the money was hers. But she couldn’t touch the pension accounts for her personal use. Why would she? There was plenty of cash elsewhere and easily hers with a signed check. Why steal it?