“In that case…” His upper lip touched mine. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Chapter Thirty-four
The clock on the wall above the office door moved as slowly as it always did, but I willed myself to be patient.
Since the night Nathan and I brought out the handcuffs, things had changed between us. The sex was hotter. The nights were longer. The stress of constantly trying to prove myself trustworthy was gone. Just the thought of seeing him again tonight-even though it had only been a few hours since he’d left my apartment to go to work-made me almost giddy.
As the evening wound down, I tried to ignore the clock, since it seemed to be slowing down with each passing minute. Soon. I’d be with Nathan soon.
“Someone’s been in a good mood today,” Dylan said as he walked into the office and dumped some folders on his desk.
I shrugged, not bothering to try to hide the smile. “I’m allowed a good mood once in a while, aren’t I?”
He laughed over the rim of his coffee cup. “The underlings will thank you for it.”
“Hmm, maybe I should go on the warpath just to keep them on their toes.” I laughed.
“Anything to keep them honest,” he said, but there was decidedly less humor in his voice this time.
I cleared my throat, my own humor fading. “Keep them honest?”
He muttered something I couldn’t quite hear.
“Dylan?”
Looking me in the eye, he sighed. “I think we’ve got a thief among us.”
My blood turned cold. “Oh, really?”
He nodded. “Discrepancies in the tills the last few days.”
“How much are we talking about?” No, good mood, come back. Don’t go, don’t-
“Added up over the last two weeks,” he said, looking at me over the top of his glasses. “Almost three hundred.”
“What!” I sat up so fast I kicked a cup of pens off my desk. Pens and cup clattered onto the floor, but I didn’t pay attention to them. “Dylan, how long have you known about this?”
He took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Morgan brought it to my attention the first day it happened. Then it-”
“Wait, wait, wait,” I said, red-hot anger filling in for my good mood, which had vacated the premises. “You’ve known about this for two weeks?”
“I’ve been trying to figure out who’s doing it,” he said. “But hell if I can.”
“Fuck,” I said. “You could have told me.”
“I thought I could chase them down myself, but-” He shrugged again. “Evidently not.”
I let out a breath. No sense arguing about things that couldn’t be changed. “So what have you found out?”
The more he explained, the worse the situation got. By the time he’d told me everything, the only thing that was clear was that there was a thief on our payroll, but it was nearly impossible to figure out who.
And with three hundred dollars-and counting-missing, we needed to figure out who it was as soon as possible.
“Looks like it’s going to be a long night,” I said, eyeing the information Dylan had compiled in his search for the thief.
“The money won’t magically appear if we figure it out tonight,” Dylan said. “Might as well get some sleep, then work on it.”
“Go ahead,” I said, flipping through copies of bank deposits, time cards and till summaries. “I’ll stay.”
“I thought you had plans tonight?”
My stomach twisted into a knot of fury and disappointment. “Yeah, I do. But this has to be done. Now.” Whoever you are, you thieving little fucker, you’re stealing money and you’re keeping me from getting laid. When I figure out who you are…
“Zach, you might as well do it tomorrow.”
“Right. Tomorrow.” I spread the folder across my desk and leaned down to pick up the pens I’d knocked over minutes before. “Between trying to keep everyone and everything working. Might as well do it now before anything else goes missing.” I unclipped my phone from my belt.
“You’re not calling the cops, are you?” Dylan asked.
I laughed as I hit speed-dial. “For three hundred? Please. No, I’m just-” I stopped when Nathan’s voicemail picked up. When the recording finished, I said, “Hey, it’s me. I got hung up at the theatre. It looks like this could take a few hours, but I’ll let you know when I leave. Let me know if you want to get together tomorrow night instead.”
After I’d hung up, I tossed my phone on the desk and looked at the papers in front of me.
The deeper we dug into the time cards and till summaries from the last two weeks, the more confused and frustrated I became. No one employee was on the clock on every single shift when money was missing. All of the till summaries and deposit slips were double-counted, initialed by two employees, and there was no pattern that I could see.
My phone rang as I pored over the time cards for the seven hundredth time. I knew from the ringtone that it was Nathan, but didn’t answer it. He was probably just calling to let me know whether or not he still wanted me to come over after work, so he’d leave a message. As much as I hated blowing him off, I didn’t want to lose my concentration as I sorted through this mess. The more I focused, the sooner I’d finish, and the sooner I could be with him.
The answer was here. Somewhere amidst all these names and numbers, something would tell me where the missing money had gone. We’d had thieves before. I knew the signs. It was in here somewhere, and I needed every bit of my concentration to find it.
As the evening wore on, guilt tugged at my gut even as I continued scouring paperwork. I really needed to call him back. I felt bad for ignoring him, no matter how irritated I was with this situation, so-
Something on a time card caught my eye, and a light suddenly came on in my head. I read it over a few times to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating. I wasn’t.
“I’ll be damned,” I said.
Dylan looked up. “What? Did you find something?”
“Sneaky little shits,” I muttered. “Check this out.” I pulled out a time card and a till summary. The time card was for Lisa, one of the full-time employees, and her signature was on the till summary and deposit slip.
“You think it was Lisa?” he asked, stunned.
I shook my head and pointed to a correction on her time card. “She went home sick that day. On her next shift, she came to me and said she’d forgotten to clock out, so I took care of it for her.”
“Then how did she sign the deposit and summary?”
“She didn’t,” I said. “I have a feeling whoever did it put her signature on it.”
“Wouldn’t they have known she was gone for the night?”
“Not if the person who forged her signature was on the morning crew.” I looked over the schedules and signatures again. “And I think that’s our pattern.” I pointed to the schedule. “Dean and Max are the only ones on the schedule every single day that money was missing, but they weren’t always on the same shift.”
“And one of them was always closing the till and doing the deposit,” Dylan said. “You little bastards…”
We went over the papers a few more times to make sure we were right about the pattern. By the time we were done, there was no mistaking. Upon closer inspection, the forged signatures were so obvious I couldn’t believe we’d missed them. We had our thieves, and tomorrow we would be down two employees.
Satisfied that the problem was resolved, I gathered my jacket and cell phone and headed for the door. We locked up, set the alarm and stepped out into the night.
On my way out, I flipped my phone open and had my thumb on the speed-dial when I looked up and stopped in my tracks.
“Nathan,” I said. “What are you doing here?”
He smiled, but it seemed forced. Very forced. He shrugged and said, “Just didn’t want to wait to see you.” There was an edge to his voice. Something spoken, but unspoken. A subtext I couldn’t quite put my finger on.