A Taste For Danger Read Online Free

have numbers men out the ying-yang. What we need is someone like you who has a nose for trouble and tracking down criminals. Even though this is the white-collar variety, your instincts are still valuable.”
    “Well,” said Jack, flummoxed, “thank you for placing your trust in me.”
    “Don’t mention it. Now, you should know that only four people besides yourself know about this and they are all at Big D, at HQ. One is me, one is my boss, the overall Vice-President, and the other two are the CEO and CFO. I’m talking about over the whole company. Not heads of Divisions or Departments. That’s what Headquarters consists of.
    Now Jack understood the uneasiness of the others back at ‘Little D’ towards him. The biggest of the bigwigs really did hire him. Again he felt out of his element. How was he supposed to track down some white-collar paleface playing with numbers?
    Tom came across as unfazed and supremely confident. I guess that’s what being a bigwig does to you . Jack doubted Tom paid for parking. He doubted Tom paid for much of anything at all. Sure enough, at the end of the meal, Tom whipped out the company card. “Business lunch,” he said to Jack as he put the card on the tray.
    Jack needed to get all the info he could while he had Tom’s attention. Especially since no one at ‘Little D’ even knew about the case. “How much has been taken to date?”
    “Over 500K,” Tom answered. “Even to a company like Devonshire, that’s not small potatoes.
    “Wffffttttt,” Jack whistled. “Are there any books or records I can review? How did you discover the missing amounts?”
    Tom made one of his grand gestures again with his hand, waving it across the table. “I’ve already sent the files to you over email. They should be waiting for you back in your office. Our CFO discovered the discrepancy last year.”
    “Last year? Isn’t that a dead case by now?”
    “No,” said Tom. “At first it was only 250K and we planned to write it off. We did an in-house investigation, but came up with nothing. This year, the CFO discovered another 250K missing. That’s when we decided to bring you in.”
    “I see,” said Jack. The company wanted to keep it quiet and would rather have written off the first amount than have to own up to the fact that problems existed. He bet there were ways they could write it off that didn’t cost them a dollar. But when the second amount went missing, they knew they had to act. Made sense.
    “Remember, this is just between you and me. Keep the lips silent to anyone at Little D or anywhere else about this.” Tom made the universal shhh sign with his forefinger over his lips.
    “Will do,” said Jack. “And everything I need is in my email?”
    “Everything we know so far.”
    “Who did the investigation last time?” asked Jack.
    “He’s no longer with us.”
    “Hmmm.”
    “Don’t let that scare you. We have faith in you. I have faith in you. You’ll have as much time as you need to get to the bottom of this. I’ve sent you everything I have.”
    “Okay,” said Jack, still uneasy. “Is there a way for me to interview the CFO?”
    Tom tilted his head and looked thoughtful. Then he focused his eyes directly on Jack. “I suppose I could set something like that up.”
    “Just to, you know, hear what he has to say too.” Jack had the feeling he was treading on thin ice without a clue as to why.
    “I’ll see what I can do,” said Tom finally. “I’ll email you.”
    With that the two men rose from the booth. Tom dropped Jack off at Little D. Each remained silent on the way back, lost in their own thoughts.

Chapter Five
    After lunch Jack walked back to his office to check his email. Sure enough, dozens of documents came through, all sent from Tom. He had his work cut out for him. He spent the rest of the afternoon scouring the documents. From one of them he learned the name of the first investigator—the one that was no longer with the company: Jerry Wilson.