As Long As I Have You

~ Chapter Forty Two ~

Thursday evening couldn't have come soon enough. Evan looked out the tinted window of the chauffeured car and sighed, unmoved by the glowing lights that made up the city's skyline or the driver's assurance he would have him at his destination shortly. The mechanical powered stars did nothing to soften his mood, and tonight were little more than numerations of the problems that were piling up wherever he looked.

He turned his attention back to the tablet on the seat next to him, and like a sadist seeking out punishment he opened it and accessed the file he and John had spent the day compiling. He swiped past the point-form notes and stopped his finger when it rested against a column of damning numbers that couldn't be refuted no matter how many times he cursed or how long he stared at the screen.

After picking up John on Sunday afternoon the pair flew to Vancouver and one of their satellite offices where they spent the first two days of their reconnaissance mission laying groundwork and then gathering resources. They mapped out their strategy in search of the missing money and then spent a lengthy amount of time in discussion with Travis Enterprises' finance team while acquiring access to the company's network and verifying permissions through department heads, IT, and legal team. After that it was onto reviewing every record from every source they could manage without prompting suspicion or inquiry.

The third day required frustrating amounts of patience and a keen eye as the men pored over digitized invoices, financial statements, ledger balances, and account receivables and payables. It was on the morning of the fourth day, Wednesday, when John annoyingly declared Evan's conspiracy theory debunked that they finally found a loose thread and began to pull.

A series of wire transfers had been made for building materials but they couldn't be linked to any projects Travis Enterprises had on the books. The transfers were also made with odd regularity and in amounts that painted a picture once all the pieces were brought together. To look at a single transaction didn't necessarily raise an alarm, but to review more than two dozen of them in the last two years was to recognize something seriously amiss. When John pondered over why no one ever caught on, Evan reminded him that Samuel Markham operated in the same capacity he did while he was at Travis Enterprises. Being a trusted VP and Chief Financial Officer with a forty year personal history to the CEO allowed Markham many privileges, not the least of which included approving all of his own transactions without additional oversight.

"It was definitely poor diligence on Carl's part," Evan allowed, "but in his defence he thought he could trust his life-long friend. I imagine if inquiries came back to Markham he could have dismissed it with assurances that he would take care of it. Then it would only have been a matter of adjusting the entries as he saw fit."

"What about the company he wired the money to?"

"A fake corporation with a real bank account. Look at the number sitting in place of a company name on the invoice; it's sixteen digits. What better place to hide the money than in plain view?"

John looked down at his copy of the paperwork and his jaw dropped. "That's the account number?! Is this why he wanted Kirsten to let him back into Travis Enterprises? So he could get his hands on his goddamn account number?"

"I think so."

"Why the hell wouldn't he keep that with him?"

Evan shrugged in disgust, and threw his own papers on the table and ran frustrated hands back and forth through his hair.

"Plausible deniability? Stupidity? Arrogance? He was bold enough to steal the money in the first place, so who knows? Whatever his reasons were, I can't stop thinking we should be looking back further to see if he's been at this even longer."