by Lauren Esker
Boy, you've got it bad.
The door of the bookkeeping office stood open. Debi was sorting files, her movements brisk and efficient as she glanced at each one and transferred it to one of the many neat piles that were slowly emerging from the undifferentiated mess.
She was wearing her glasses, little green-framed ones. Fletcher had noticed how she didn't seem to wear them with other people around, like she was embarrassed about it. He couldn't see why; they looked adorable on her, bringing out the summer-forest highlights in her eyes.
He tapped on the door.
She jerked her head up and whipped off the glasses in one smooth motion, folding them idly as she stared at him with a startled-animal look. It was obvious that she'd been completely lost in her head as she worked.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you. I just wanted to ask ..."
I just wanted to ask you to dinner. I just wanted to ask you back to my place. I just wanted to ask you to be part of my life.
"... if you could find more information on the business's financial losses, while you're in there anyway. When it started, if it happened all at once or if it's been gradually snowballing, that kind of thing."
"Well, the thing about that is—" She made a move as if to push up the glasses she was no longer wearing, aborting at the last minute. "I didn't mean to imply you're falling into financial ruin this very minute. If you were, one of your previous accountants would have let you know. Or you would have seen for yourself when you looked at the reports. The trouble is, you're approaching a cliff, and everything still looks okay now, but it's going to stop looking okay as soon as a bunch of these loans come due."
"I know," he said impatiently. "I read what you gave me. I understand all of that. What I want to know is whether you can do some, uh, forensic accounting—" This made her golden brows go up. "—and find out when all of this started, if you can."
"That's going to involve making a lot of assumptions," she said slowly.
"That's all right. Make them. I'm not just paying you to crunch numbers."
"And that's the other thing. You are paying me, or paying my firm, and this will mean I'll be here longer. I originally thought I could wrap up this week if I pulled long hours, but adding the extra work is going to push it ahead to next week at least."
Oh no. How terrible. Another week of Debi; however would he cope? "That's fine," he said, keeping his voice neutral with an effort.
"Do you want me to prioritize that over the regular accounts?"
"Use your judgment," he told her. "You're the expert. However it works best."
"All right." A hesitation, then she gave him a quick smile. His knees went weak. He hoped it didn't show.
Yeah. He had it bad.
"Thank you, Ms. Fallon," he said, reasserting some modicum of distance, and turned to go.
"You can call me Debi," she said, the words tumbling out quickly.
Fletcher, startled, looked back at her. In the middle of the messy office, with her hair a tumbledown riot of blonde waves and one hand clenched around her glasses, nervously working the earpiece back and forth—she looked like an incongruous combination of nerd and goddess.
"Since we're going to be working together for a little longer," she added.
His heart gave a little jump. "In that case, you should call me Fletcher. It's only fair."
"Fletcher," she said, and his heart jumped again, hearing his name on her lips.
He left briskly, before it could get any worse, and stayed in his office for the rest of the afternoon.
Chapter Five
"What do you know about the Sperlins?"
Nia Veliz looked up from her latte. She was clearly so surprised to be given anything other than terse, one- and two-word answers to her questions that at first she didn't seem to know how to respond.
Round, bright, and bubbly, Debi's SCB caseworker had greeted her in the beginning with effusive welcome that Debi instinctively distrusted. Over the months they'd been meeting, Nia's friendliness had become a little more subdued, though it had not yet withered in the face of Debi's flat refusal to be friendly in return. Their twice-weekly meetings were as short as Debi could make them, in spite of Nia's clear determination to be seen more as a helper than a parole officer (among other things, arranging their meetings at coffee shops or parks rather than requiring Debi to come in to the SCB).
Debi had always found it condescending. The terms of her release required her to check in physically twice a week and report any changes in her work or personal status, which she did with the absolute minimum of necessary information. Theirs was a business relationship, and she didn't appreciate Nia trying to make friends with her. She chose her own friends, thank you.
Or at least she used to. None of her friendships had survived the loss of her business, her money, her world. She was a pariah in the social circles where she used to move. Even at the accounting firm, none of her coworkers seemed to like her very much, though she was self-aware enough to understand that it was at least partly because she'd made an effort to hold them at arm's length.
It had gradually began to dawn on her that Nia Veliz, perky and earnest and cheerfully unbothered by Debi's disdain, might actually be the closest thing she had to a friend. At the very least, Nia was the only person she knew who might be able to give her inside information on Chloe Sperlin's family.
Even if Nia had turned up today with her blouse buttoned crooked. Did the woman get dressed in the dark? It was driving Debi insane. She had to resist the urge to reach across the table and rebutton it properly.
"You mean the real-estate Sperlins?" Nia asked. "Those ones?"
"Those," Debi confirmed. She had, as usual, taken a tall cup of black coffee, but after a sip, she found herself adding a packet of sugar and two flavored creamers. Why not? After yesterday with the sugar, she was starting to realize that she didn't really like black coffee. Roger had been the one who wanted her to like black coffee. There was no point in letting Roger dictate her coffee choices anymore.
"Is this professional or personal interest?"
"You know what?" Debi started to rise from the table. "Forget I asked."
"No, wait!" Nia reached out to catch her sleeve. "It was a surprise, that's all. And most of what I could tell you is SCB-related. That's why I wanted to know if this was professional interest. I'm not going to pass along information that you can use to give yourself a leg up in the business world."
"But if it's for personal reasons, it's fine?" Debi inquired, arching an eyebrow as she sat slowly back down. "Interesting set of ethics you have."
As usual, Nia allowed the insult to slide off her. "It's my job to keep you from backsliding into a life of crime. So I don't think I'm overstepping to warn you away from actual criminals."
"Are they?" Now she was intrigued.
"Why do you need to know?"
Debi shrugged and sipped her coffee. How interesting: all those years she kept buying expensive roasts and high-end coffeemakers, trying to figure out how to make a cup of coffee that wasn't vaguely unpleasant, and it turned out that dumping a bunch of sugar and cheap hazelnut-flavored creamer into it was all it took to make it palatable. Feeling a little less prickly with the caffeine soothing her nerves, she said, "They're a client of the accounting firm where I work. I've been handed their case. I just wanted to know what I was getting myself into."
Nia whistled softly. "Ah. Look, just keep it professional and don't even think about getting involved with them in any other way, okay?"
"Mobsters?" She was even more intrigued now.
"Sort of, but not the Corleone, honor and horse's heads kind. More like the kind who find legal loopholes to get rich while screwing everyone else over. Anyone who crosses them gets sued or tangled up in miles of red tape. Kneecapping is a last resort for their kind of people, but it's not off the table as an option."
Interesting—she'd never realized Nia had a cynical streak. "Sounds like my kind of people," she said with
a predatory smile, adding another creamer to her cup.
"No, they aren't." Nia wasn't wearing a trace of a smile now. "You're not like them, Debi, and you're not like the rest of your pride either. I've believed that from the beginning. It's just a matter of finding something that really matters to you. Something to care about."
"What I care about is getting off this monitor and back to my ... life."
This wasn't the first time she'd said it, but as the words came out of her mouth it hit her, really hit her, that there was no life to go back to. Her life as she'd known it was gone. Her crappy apartment and the job with the accounting firm, taking whatever gruntwork they wanted to give her, was her life now.
To her horror, she realized the pressure behind her eyes and at the back of her throat was a flood of tears, and it was building so fast she didn't know how long she could keep it down.
"Debi?" Nia looked as worried as if she really cared how Debi felt. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." Debi pushed the chair back and stood up quickly. "I think we've talked about everything we need to talk about."
She walked briskly and purposefully to the restroom, holding her back straight and her shoulders upright, and managed to lock the door before her self-control crumbled. She sank to the floor and sobbed, not artful little tears but great, gulping, ugly sobs.
It was all gone. Roger and Derek were dead; Rory and Mara were in prison. Their software company was gone, their assets confiscated, their licenses revoked.
She was never getting back her beautiful condo, her nice things, her money. She was never getting her family back.
Everything she had from here on out she was going to have to work for. She would have to build it from scratch. And she was going to have to do it alone.
She'd never been alone in her life. She was the second-youngest child in a family of five, and lion shifters, like werewolves, were fiercely family-oriented. All her life she'd been tucked cozily in the embrace of her family, knowing down to the bottom of her soul that she was part of something larger than herself. She was part of the Fallon pride.
And now ...
Now there was only her.
"I'm not strong enough," she sobbed, fighting to keep the words quiet enough that the patrons of the coffee shop wouldn't hear her. The last thing she wanted was some human barista knocking on the door to make sure she was okay in here. "I'm not. I can't. This is too much. I need ..."
But everything she needed—help, family, pride—was gone.
Eventually, a little at a time, the devastation passed, leaving her worn out and empty. She became slowly aware that she was sitting on the sticky floor of a public restroom, her face was a wreck, and she was going to be late for work.
Let them fire me, she thought bitterly as she struggled to her feet. Maybe if she was living on the street, the SCB would see what they'd done and then they'd all be sorry.
Except they wouldn't. No one at the SCB cared what happened to her—well, except Nia Veliz, but that was only for professional reasons.
Her face and hair were just as much of a disaster as she'd feared. She blotted at her red cheeks with a wet paper towel and then discovered that in her distraught state, she'd left her purse—and thus everything she needed to fix her destroyed makeup—at the table.
The way today was going, someone had probably stolen it by now.
This brought a fresh round of sobbing, but it passed quickly; she was too wrung out to muster enough outrage and misery to cry anymore. She tore off another handful of paper towels and tried to scrub off the dismal smears of mascara around her eyes. All she managed to do was wipe off the neatly applied foundation that had been covering up the dark circles under her eyes, making it look like she hadn't slept in a month.
I wonder if this is what rock bottom feels like, she thought, looking at her blotchy face and red eyes in the mirror, at her hair starting to escape from the careful waves she'd hairsprayed into place that morning. Everything she felt inside was now showing on the outside; she'd tried so hard not to be a mess, and now a mess was all she could see.
Maybe she would just call in sick.
Except ... no ... first of all, her phone was in her purse, wherever that was, and second ...
Second, today was another day at Sperlin-Briggs, and the idea of spending another day with Fletcher was enough to raise her soul just the tiniest bit from its bleak pit of despair.
She actually wanted to go to work, she realized as she squinted at her very unimpressive reflection. She hadn't felt that way in months.
Clinging to that marginal shred of hope, she gave her face a last wipe with another handful of paper towels. She was going to look awful no matter what, but she could tell Fletcher she had a cold. And if she got going right now, she might not even be late.
With a little of the steel restored to her spine—or perhaps more like tarnished brass, but better than nothing—she opened the restroom door and nearly ran into Nia Veliz, who was standing just outside the door with her back against the wall. Nia jumped and let out a mouselike little squeak like the rodent shifter she was.
"What are you doing here?" Debi demanded, her voice climbing the scale to crack with indignant fury. She didn't want anyone to see her like this, but the absolute worst person to see her at her weakest had to be this puffed-up little prey shifter who could have her thrown into prison with a word. I could be hunting your kind, but instead I'm having to grovel to you, because if you think I'm not good enough, you can destroy my life all over again ...
Nia thrust something at her, which Debi, braced for an attack, took a moment to recognize as the silver faux-alligator clutch purse that matched today's power suit.
"You left your purse," Nia said quickly, her eyes wide. "And your coffee—" She thrust that out, too, and Debi took it in her other hand, too bemused to object. "And you looked really terrible when you left the table, so I wanted—I don't know, I just wanted to make sure you were okay."
"Why, so I won't ruin your case record by slashing my wrists in the bathroom?" Debi flung at her. The thought occurred to her as she said it that even at her lowest, she hadn't ever considered suicide. Huh. Good to know. "You don't even like me!"
"What are you talking about?" Nia protested. "I do like you!"
"What? Why? I've been nothing but rude to you!"
"I've noticed." Nia's jaw jutted out stubbornly, and to her own shock, Debi found herself being pushed back into the restroom by a chinchilla shifter who was almost a foot shorter than she was. "Now, it'll be quicker and easier to have someone give you a hand with this. Do you have any makeup in your bag? I don't have much, a lipstick maybe, and I think there's a hairbrush ..." She'd already opened her purse, which turned out to be stuffed full of old receipts, tissues, rubber bands, pencils, and a million other things. It was exactly the sort of disaster of a purse that Debi would have expected from her.
"I know it's in here somewhere," Nia muttered, the tip of her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she pulled out handfuls of wadded Kleenex smudged with eyeshadow. Debi wouldn't have been surprised to see a live animal emerge from the mess, and she couldn't imagine touching anything to her face that had been in there.
"There's absolutely no need for that. I have all the things I need." Debi opened her purse, which she typically swapped out to match whatever she was wearing and therefore contained only the minimum of things she needed to use that day.
"Wow, you're organized." Nia looked impressed.
There were a number of ways Debi could have responded to that, but she decided to opt for tact—Nia was helping her, after all—and say nothing at all. She had a suspicion that any "help" Nia had to offer would probably make her look worse, and yet somehow she found herself ducking her head to allow Nia to quickly smooth down her hair and give it little doses of hairspray while she reapplied her mascara.
There was a sharp tap at the door. "Do you expect to be out of there anytime this century?" an impatient female voice called.
Nia grinned. "I guess we better stop tying up the bathroom. Anyway ..." She brushed a stray hair off Debi's shoulder. "You look great."
Debi didn't think she looked anywhere in the same neighborhood as "great," but at least she no longer looked like she'd been crying her eyes out in a public restroom. "Thanks," she said. "Say. Wait a minute."
She caught Nia's shoulder and turned the other woman around to face her, getting a startled look in return. She briskly undid Nia's buttons and did them up properly.
"Oh." Nia looked down at herself. "Thanks. It's just so easy to do that."
Debi could have pointed out that Nia had done it at least three times since they'd been having their casework meetings, as well as turning up to one of their check-ins wearing mismatched socks, and another time with the tag on her sweater flipped out.
Instead she said, "Well, next time I'll tell you."
Though her smile was a little forced, it got an answering one from Nia.
***
She was only a few minutes late to Sperlin-Briggs, but as it turned out, Fletcher wasn't there at all. "He had some sort of family emergency," was the explanation she got from the tired-looking middle-aged woman who was filling out purchase orders in the outer office when Debi arrived. "Who are you again?"
"I'm the accountant who's handling the office books."
"Ah." The woman gave her another look. "My condolences. I'm Janice, by the way, the office manager. Just ask me if you need anything. Oh, and there are donuts in the break room if you want any."
Although she was looking forward to forgetting her troubles in the soothing tedium of taking Sperlin-Briggs's chaotic accounts and making order out of them, Debi hesitated in the outer office, unable to pass up an opportunity to ask questions.
"What's it like, working for Fletch—for Mr. Briggs?"
Janice looked up from her work. "How do you mean?"
Which made Debi backtrack, having to reassess what it was that she really wanted to know. "Is he a hard person to work for? He seems to be something of a perfectionist."