FOUR

Delilah shook her head, trying to contain her irritation over John’s reluctance to comply with her request.

“No, the electronic records won’t suffice. I’ll need the backup documents for these transactions,” she insisted and looked up at John who hovered over her desk, a gesture she interpreted as intimidation. It wouldn’t work on her, despite the fact that she hated it when people she barely knew got so close to her.

The training she’d had on how to deal with difficult clients taught her not to show her emotions on her face. While she watched sweat accumulate on John’s brow, her own face remained unwavering, just the way she’d practiced often enough in front of the mirror. She didn’t need to see her reflection; she knew exactly how her facial muscles felt when she did it right.

“We don’t have them here. They’re all at a storage facility down at Oyster Point.”

Not a good enough excuse. Not that any excuse would work on her.

“Where’s Oyster Point?”

“In South San Francisco.”

“Well, that shouldn’t be too much trouble then. Get them up here this afternoon.”

Even though she wasn’t familiar with San Francisco and its surroundings, she knew where South San Francisco was, since she had passed it on her way from the airport. It couldn’t take longer than twenty minutes to drive to the facility in Oyster Point.

“I’ll request them, but I can’t guarantee that they’ll send them up this afternoon. It’s an outside vendor we use for this, and I don’t have any influence over how fast they work.” He shrugged his shoulders.

“Fine. Just get them here. If they’re not here this afternoon, I’ll want them tomorrow morning first thing. It’s already Friday tomorrow, and I really don’t want to spend my entire weekend in the office. I suppose you don’t either.”

She gave him another determined look, making sure her unyielding mask was still in place. If she had to threaten him with weekend work, so be it. It didn’t mean she had any intention of working this weekend. She was hoping to do some sightseeing on Saturday and Sunday. The plan was to wrap up the audit on Wednesday the following week. She was confident that by then she would have solved the mystery hidden in the books.

What she had discovered so far was promising. It appeared somebody was manipulating depreciation entries in the books. She trusted her gut feeling which told her something was fishy. It was done very methodically, and it appeared that it had been going on for close to a year.

Only a year—strange. Delilah looked at the dates on her screen again and confirmed the time frame. Why would records for the current and previous year already be in storage? Most companies would only send records older than three years into storage. She didn’t like the sound of it, not a bit.

The reason she wanted the original documents from John was because she needed to see who had first initiated and then authorized the transactions. The computer entries didn’t show it. Keying was done by low-level employees, approval was generally a level or two higher.

Delilah was fully aware that even though it was strictly against company policy, many employees would share logons when they were in a crunch and things had to get done. Therefore, while she knew whose logon had approved the transactions in question, only the original paperwork would confirm who was really behind it. And whoever was initiating these transactions was going to be in trouble once she wrote up her report.

“I’m going for some dim sum up in Chinatown. Do you want to tag along?” John’s offer came out of the blue.

Delilah was reminded that the night before she hadn’t gotten to enjoy her Chinese takeout and now felt a craving for it. She gave him a grateful smile.

“Actually, that’d be great. I’m starving.”

“Let’s go then.”

She snatched her jacket off the coatrack near the door and followed John out. Even though she’d already been in San Francisco for almost a week, this was the first time John had asked her to join him for lunch. All other days he’d always seemed in a hurry during lunch break, rushing out of the office as soon as she left for her own break.

Dim sum would be a welcome distraction and hopefully make the day go by faster. She couldn’t wait till seven o’clock and her date with Samson. What would she wear? She hadn’t really brought anything dressy. Maybe she could stop by a boutique after work and buy something suitable?

She walked up the steep streets into Chinatown next to John. He seemed to be quite fit, even though he didn’t look it.