Read Layers: Book One for Free Online

embezzlement because you dislike them or they stole your dream man. You might super glue their laptop shut, or loosen the wheels on their desk chair, or send them flowers and sign the card ‘Your Love Slave, Frankie’. Not that I would do any of that.” I bat my guilty eyes.
    Jaxson chuckles. “You’re cheeky.”
    I lift a brow. “And quite creative, if I do say so myself.” I grab the reports and look through them again. “We’re missing something.”
    “What are you looking for?”
    I sigh. “I don’t really know.” I think for a minute. “Embezzlement isn’t easy to pull off. Other than access to the accounts and brain skills, it takes balls. And if you’re going to set someone up it takes mucho balls. We need to look at this from their perspective. What is my motive? What is the end result of my set up?”
    “The end result is that you’re charged for a crime.”
    “Yes, but what would most likely happen regardless of charges?”
    “You would lose or leave you job.”
    “Yes, out of a job and distracted. If you’re thinking about how to save your ass, you’re not thinking about your job.”
    And then the brick wall crumbles and the bricks fall on my head. “Oh my God.” I flip through one of the files until I find what I’m looking for. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it.”
    Jaxson stands up. ”See what?” He says and I hand him the file and point to an e-mail.”
    “You might set someone up, if they know something that they shouldn’t. Right?”
    “Yeah, you might.”
    “Then you would need to cover your tracks, but maybe when you covered your tracks you missed a small detail.”
    Jaxson looks at me with a confused scowl. “Okay I’m lost.”
    “What do you do if someone has evidence against you, and you have access to said evidence?”
    “You get rid of said evidence?”
    “Exactly. Not only do you get rid of the evidence, you also get rid of the person that discovered said evidence.”
    “I guess.”
    I shrug. “Okay, read the e-mail correspondence, then look at the date.”
    He reads it, and then looks up. “Okay.”
    “What’s it about?”
    “It’s a confirmation of a wire transfer that you allegedly made to an account in Belize.”
    “And the date?”
    “January eighth.
    “On January fifth I found some disturbing inaccuracies with some past outside audits. I documented these, then sent an e-mail of my findings to the person in charge of outside audits.”
    “Will Harris.”
    “Yeah, Will Harris. I’m guessing that he didn’t meet with you or send you a report about the inaccuracies.”

    “No.” He rubs his temples. “I’m still confused as hell, and what does Will have to do with any of this?”

    I exhale. “Do you remember the Smith and Holt Pharmaceutical merger?”
    “Yes, of course I remember. It was a complicated mess; blocked access to all of Holt’s accounts, Smith withholding critical FDA reports.”
    “A complicated mess??”
I smirk. “More like a complete disaster. Anyway, as procedure, when I have limited or blocked access to information I make comparisons with similar past audits. Finding no similar audits in-house I then looked into past outside audits. While making comparisons I noticed inaccurate or altered data on several audits. This was concerning, but what really caught my eye was a repetitive pattern. Whenever you see any kind of repetitive pattern, red flags go up.”
    “But, all outside audits are monitored.”
    “Yes, I know. And who monitors them?”
    “Will Harris.” He huffs. “So you’re saying that Will set you up for embezzlement over some inaccuracies in some outside audits? Even for you this seems bizarre.”
    “What is that supposed to mean?”
    “That you sometimes think a little too far out of the box.”
    “Whatever.”
    “Alexia, it just seems extreme.”
    “Yeah, I agree, but let’s look at the facts. I make a report of my findings and concerns then e-mail it to Will. The day after I sent this