Strike Me Down - Mindy Mejia Page 0,30
he wasn’t the strongest or the fastest—not then—but he worked harder than anyone I’ve ever met. He didn’t cut corners or ask for a single goddamn thing from anyone.” Her voice broke and she paused before turning to look at Nora. “Aaden wasn’t stealing from us and I will destroy anyone who claims otherwise. Do you and your accountants understand?”
Nora held Logan’s gaze. Dozens of unanswered questions fired through her brain, but she nodded. “I understand we’ve been hired to look for an amount much larger than twenty-four thousand dollars.”
The two women faced off silently until someone knocked on the door and an assistant popped her head in, reminding Logan of an interview with ESPN. She swallowed and walked out of the office, leaving Nora staring at the place where she’d stood.
Gregg leaned back on his desk and let out a breath.
“I’m sorry about that. Aaden was … special … to Logan.”
“Special?”
“Certainly more than me.” Frustration crossed his face, leaving as quickly as it had come. A buzz on his wrist signaled incoming messages, but he ignored them. The energy in the room had changed completely without Logan in it. Intimacy wound its way through his words: casual, direct admissions she wondered if he would say to other accountants. Or other previous lovers. “He practically worshipped her. I was worried at first. He certainly wouldn’t have been her first stalker. People tend to become fixated on Logan.”
She felt herself flushing, but Gregg spoke to the carpet, unaware of Nora’s reaction. “Instead of distancing herself from him, she encouraged his ambition to become a fighter. She started training him personally.”
“Gregg.” The assistant was back. “Are you heading to the stadium? I’m getting calls like every two minutes.”
“You’ve already been generous with your time this morning.” Nora picked up her briefcase. “Don’t let me keep you.”
He took a few steps toward the door, then stopped and shook his head at the floor. “Would you forgive me if I said I wished you would?” Then, giving her a regretful smile, held up an arm to usher her out.
* * *
After the charged scene in Gregg’s office, Nora did the only thing she could. She worked. Her team set up operations and dove into Strike’s books with a fervent determination, the challenge of the looming deadline propelling each of them faster and harder into their assignments. The IT manager patched them in, giving them full access to every drive and operating system, and hooked Inga into the email server where the AI computer began scanning eight hundred gigabytes of data.
They ran preliminary cash statements, performed comparative ratio analysis on Strike’s account balances, and pored through the highest value bank transactions and vendors. Unlike most of their investigations, where the oversights or fraud schemes took years to develop, this was six months. Twenty million gone in six months. It wasn’t some small, discreet wound slowly bleeding the company over time; they were looking for a gunshot.
A figurative gunshot, Nora had to remind herself when the image of Aaden’s dead body flashed into her mind. Beyond the tragedy and horror of it, she didn’t see how a young trainer’s suicide could relate to the case at hand. She had to put Aaden Warsame aside, to file his death the same way she filed any other fact in an investigation, and not let it haunt her. Aaden wasn’t Sam White. Twenty-four thousand wasn’t twenty million. She had to be objective, and not see those open, empty eyes whenever she closed her own.
Dead man distracting me.
She texted Corbett at one point.
I’m still breathing, woman.
He sent it with a gif of a toothless, wrinkled senior citizen.
Now gifs distracting me.
You’re welcome.
By the end of the first day, they’d identified the three largest outflows in the last six months—payroll, new club construction, and the tournament. Nora broke the team into groups and sent them down their respective rabbit holes while she concentrated on the major players. Only a few people at the company had the ability to divert that much cash that quickly.
As owners, both Gregg and Logan had full access to all bank accounts and unlimited authority to enter into contracts and make purchases or investments. According to their articles of incorporation, they had to have express permission from the other owner for any large investments, but if either of them wanted twenty million dollars, there would be little to stop them from taking it.
The other possibility was the highest-ranking finance employee, Darryl Nolan. Darryl, the sweaty white guy in