Beyond Love and Lies

Chapter 9- Report

    “What do you mean by this? Oh, my God!” Charlene blurted in shock after reading the documents Andy laid in front of her. She spent lunch at Andy’s place this weekend. They’ve grown fond of each other. It had been almost two months since they shared their first lunch at the cafeteria building.

    “I know, it was taking me a while to finish this since Mr. Flores’ works have occupied me,” Andy said. She had been doing most of his work, and the old guy was bumming around inside his own office.

    “It's reaching almost a million, Andy. Mr. Davidson must know this. This is why he was having a problem with the finance and accounting department. He once mentioned that there were errors that he couldn’t put his finger on, and this is the answer,”  Charlene detailed. Poor Damien, she thought.

    “Yes, he must know, but we need to know first who are these three people involved. I have the list of account numbers. I deduced it from hundreds of transactions. These accounts received the same amount of money missing in the report until recently they stopped, so I don’t know. However, there were new ones randomly existing,” Andy said, handing Charlene the paper.

    “Let me deal with these at work on Monday. I have full access to the database, plus I can pull out some strings for my boss. Though it's not acceptable, this is for the best.” Charlene assured. She couldn’t believe Andy was doing this all by herself.

    “Oh, God. Thank you, woman. Finally, I have someone to deal with this stuff. I had so much time before, but since that old man was lazy nowadays, I couldn’t focus on this,” Andy blurted in relief.

    “No worries, I'm happy you did this. Who would've thought a newbie would do this kind of thing. How long have you been doing this?” Charlene asked. She knew it wouldn't be that long since Andy has been in the company for roughly half a year.

    “Nearly four months. Two months after I’ve started working in the company,”

    “Good, not that long and not too much money yet. But still, these guys are messing at the wrong people, Again Andy. Thank you, and I promise I will do this on Monday.” Charlene said, holding Andy’s arm. This woman was such a smart Angel.

    “Okay, ladies, that’s enough work. Here's our snack for this afternoon,” Mickey said, interrupting the two ladies talking about work on Saturday afternoon.

    “Wow, what is that Mr. Cutie pie”  Charlene sniggered to Mickey. She found him handsome but not her type. He was too sweet for her bitter demeanor.

    “It's an apple and cherry pie, Ms. Secretary,” Mickey said, smiling at his twin sister’s newfound friend. They never really had long term friends since they’ve had moved a lot when they were kids until high school days.

    The trio watched and binged movie series and splurged bottles of wine. They were in the same age group and shared the same passion and loved simple things.

~`

    “What is this, Charlene?” Damien asked Charlene.

    She just handed him the report in a large envelope that she and Andy talked about and researched. It was a very confidential and high risk that two of them must work it in discreet. She promised Andy that she would try her best and use her position to find the company's embezzlement's culprits. She was able to access the information of the people they suspected being involved in the scheme.

    “Boss, can I ask you a question?” Charlene said. Damien looked up and furrowed his eyebrows at her.

    “Go and shoot,” Damien said to Charlene. He was quite puzzled about what his secretary was acting. She has been the longest one since he started the post of CEO- three years and numerous before her. Charlene was a down to earth, and very prim woman never tried to seduce him, smart and thick-skinned. She wasn’t like the other one who had flirted or became his fling. He couldn’t mix lust with business, and once he got Charlene as his secretary, he couldn’t be happier. They’re about the same age, him being older than one year. He treated her as a sister.

    Charlene sat down on his receiving chair. She knew he was free this time, and she made sure Damien won't be having any meetings in the next few hours. Looking at him, “How much do you trust me?” Charlene nervously asked. She was comfortable working with Damien for the last three years, and he was the nicest of all. But she just asked him not so typical question.

    Damien’s brows knitted, “A lot? of course a lot Charlene!, you’ve been great with your job, is there something going on?” he queried.

    “Ahhh, that envelope had so much information that one of the trusted employee and I managed to investigate. I'm aware of the financial report of the company was having a problem, so a friend of mine, actually my friend did start it, finding out everything that was happening behind your eyes.” Charlene explained before sighing a deep breath.

     “What do you mean?” He scowled, still puzzling about it.

    “Those are a compilation of reports of accounts in our archive that isn’t matching to our database; money was being taken and put somewhere the company had no connection about.” She clarified.

    Damien's eyes gaped wide. Was this the answer to his problem? He briskly opened the sealed envelope. He one by one scanned the thick papers. There were explanations on every page about the stated report, and with the time and date stamping, it was clearly stated that the company was losing money for the past six months—some accounts from the last two years too.  And as of to date, it was almost a million dollars. He read and studied the papers. It became appalling as Damien calculated and read it thoroughly.

    He browsed more up to the last pages and found the main culprits on this matter. But how can this report be sure? One of them had been in the company for years, and the two others as well.

    He was about to speak to Charlene, but she was gone.  He pressed the receiver and asked her to come back.

    “Tell me, how many percent sure your intel about this? This is a very delicate report,” Damien asked.

    “Hundred percent, she was doing it all alone till she asked for my help,” Charlene replied. What would Damien say once he knew the one who did that was the very same woman he shouted at the hall one time. Charlene thought.

    “She?”  Damien asked. The woman behind this must be a smart and clever one. He thought.

    “Yes, She wanted me to disclose her identity since she was afraid it would cost her job. She wanted you to take a look first and decide if it was feasible. These people involved are long time employees and can’t be suspected of doing an inside job.”

    Charlene was right. One of them was Ms. Jessica Powers, who had been working for the company for ten years, as the accounting department head. Mr. Noah Paulsen was the IT head assistant and Mr. Eric Lee, the head of the Auditing.  How could these people be involved? The company had trusted them. Many questions were running on his head, but the answers were in front of him.

    “Let her know I'll take a look at this, and once I found out the truth, I will meet her and set everything right. Thank you, Charlene,”  Damien concluded. He must check it first before making any radical decision.