Strike Me Down - Mindy Mejia Page 0,53

briefcase down and opened the one she was holding, pulling out a single sheet of paper. It looked like a check stub without the check. The header said “Deposit Confirmation,” and the description section contained only a single phrase: “Retainer refund—Dallas.” The deposit amount was almost six hundred thousand dollars.

Our Dallas club had been completed two weeks ago; I’d personally flown there for the final walk-through.

After a silence that seemed to last five minutes, Nora set the paper down. “If Magers Construction is working for Strike, you should be paying them. Why are they sending money to you?”

“The retainer.” I swallowed, still staring at the ink. “Magers typically requires a letter of credit from their clients, a financial guarantee for costs that tend to arise with their type of construction. Unexpected plumbing or electrical problems, creative ways to design around historical register restrictions, that kind of thing. It’s supposed to be ten percent of the total cost of the project, but since Strike is self-funded—” I looked up.

“You don’t have access to a line of credit.” Her eyes flashed. “You paid a cash deposit.”

“Yes, but we expected the majority of the funds back. We’ve always received the refunds of the unused retainer amounts upon completion of the clubs, since the beginning.”

Nora pulled out her computer, checked a document, and tapped the last four digits of the deposit account that appeared at the bottom of the slip. “This isn’t one of Strike’s bank accounts.”

We looked at each other, a moment’s pause, before we both turned and began tearing open the envelopes. Baltimore, $732,000. San Diego, $911,000. Denver, $859,000. Slip after slip of endless zeroes. Money sent to Strike. Money that Strike—or the majority of Strike—never received.

By the time we got to the last slip, there was paper everywhere. Shreds of envelopes littered the table, chairs, and floor and the stack of deposits crowded Nora’s laptop. Her fingers flew across the keyboard while I paced the narrow strip of linoleum that made up the kitchen.

“Goddamn Darryl. I asked. I asked him about the retainers when … when …” I couldn’t name an exact date. The tournament had consumed so much of my life in the last months. All the conference calls about vStrike, the logistics, liaising with fighters across the globe, not to mention visiting the new clubs and checking construction progress. The project managers had assured me the remaining retainer balances were being refunded. They’d given me reports, which I’d filed, and we’d all moved on to the next club.

“None of these amounts have been received in any Strike bank account.” Nora’s keyboard stopped clicking and she angled toward me. “Magers is closed this week, but we tracked down their payables supervisor and asked for a total list of refunds in the last six months. Her reply matches the slips, except for one. This is twenty-seven deposits and there should be twenty-eight. There’s one missing.”

“How much is it altogether?”

Nora didn’t answer. She stood up and began walking through the efficiency, the half kitchen that bled into a living area and ended in a bed shoved under the wall-length windows, searching every inch of it.

“Nora? How much?”

She ignored me and opened cupboards and drawers, looking through the bathroom and utility closet. Finally, she went to the trash can, turning it over on the table and going through it with the tip of a pen, lingering on a few receipts and an old take-out carton. At the bottom of the can, she found another envelope and a balled-up piece of paper. Flattening it, she breathed out a low puff of air. “Bingo.”

I grabbed the paper out of her hands, staring at the network of lines and smear of ink. Philadelphia, $743,000. The edge of the slip had grease stains on it. Someone had looked at this, had perused it while food dripped fat over their evidence of embezzlement. Everything in me went cold.

At my side, Nora quietly took the paper back and laid it on top of the others. “Twenty-eight deposits. A little over nineteen million dollars.”

Almost the entire missing prize money. She’d found it, but there was no relief, no exhale of tension like I’d expected. I stared at those stains on the paper, the indisputable evidence that Logan had been here, and struggled to check my emotions. “What did you find that brought us here? You said Inga flagged something in the email server?”

Nora unfolded one of the thrown away receipts from a sandwich shop, darkened with greasy finger splotches, and