Accounting for Lust (3 page)

“It also means someone is getting desperate.” Joshua placed a restraining hand on her arm. “Please Cassie, let me hire someone to watch over you. I promise
they’ll be discreet
.
If you had a man at home . . .
”

Even before he finished speaking, Cassie shook her head, shrugged his hand off her arm and walked towards the door. She
didn’t need a man and
needed someone peering over her shoulder twenty-four hours a day about as much as a hole in the head. Inwardly she winced at the analogy.

“No.”

“Then I quit. I will not be a part of this any longer. I know I said I w
ould
help you find out why the company that should be flourishing with all the new contracts, struggled to make ends meet, but I will not stand by and watch you get hurt in the process.”

Cassie
froze
.
Hiring a new
forensic accountant
was
difficult enough
, but
finding one she could trust was impossible. She caught her lower lip between her teeth.
After more than ten years of friendship, he wouldn’t just up and leave her.
She whirled around. The stern expression on his face
belied her thoughts
.

If Joshua quit she might as well give up on her search for the person who robbed her father’s company to the brink of bankruptcy. She would never be able to clear his name and keep the company from
forced
liquidation.

“You can’t quit.” She hated the thinness of her voice, the insecurity that shone through.

“I can and I will, if you don’t want to take precautions.”

He stepped closer to her. “
Hell
, Cassie. I don’t sleep at night for worry about you. You can’t expect to
investigate
billion
–
Rand
arms deals, announce publicly that you
’re
doing it and not get someone seriously pissed off.”

“My father would never…”

He pressed a finger under her nose. “Your father, rest his soul, is dead.
After the way he treated you and your brother, I still can’t understand why you grieve for him. But y
ou
’re
alive and I would like to keep it that way, despite your disregard for your
own
safety.
” He grabbed her shoulders.
“
This is not a moderate accounting practice we are dealing with here, but a
Fortune 500-
company
selling weapons to foreign governments with
the blessing of our own government. Someone is getting nervous and want
s
you stopped. Don’t you get that yet?”

Cassie only nodded, not trusting her voice. She had no choice. Without Joshua she would never find the truth. Frustration and anger welled up inside her, obliterating the fear.
She would find those bastards who nearly ruined her father’s company. She would find them and make them pay.

She cleared her throat. “All right. You can find someone tomorrow. Arrange with Megan for an appointment early in the morning.
”

Relief flooded Joshua’s face. Cassie
stroked
his cheek. “Thanks for being such a good friend.”

His arms tightened for a moment
before
he released her
, turn
ed
her around and shov
ed
her out the door. “Yeah, yeah. Now get to work.”

*****

“Cassandra Adams, you need to go home.”

Darkness had long ago fallen when the
firm voice of her secretary sliced through the quiet evening air
.
Cassie jumped behind her desk and pulled a blue line through the figures she was busy checking.

“Dammit Megan, I thought you had gone home hours ago. What are you still doing here?” Cassie
rubbed her eyes,
leaned back in her chair and stared at the matronly woman standing in front of her desk with her fists firmly planted in her sides. Tendrils of grey
hair
had escaped the tight bun and fatigue cast
dark
shadows under the sharp blue eyes.
She pulled her
nor
mally friendly mouth
into a tight line
.
Cassie sighed inwardly.

Since she assumed the CEO position after her father’s death
t
en
months ago, she had to prove she was capable
of running
the company founded by her father. The already nervous investors balked at her taking over one of the largest weapons manufacturers in
South Africa
. She was an accountant, not a businesswoman and didn’t know a popsicle from a pistol when she walked through the door. In hindsight, she
didn’t
blame them. Negotiating multi-million
Rand
deals
with foreign governments was as far removed from her accounting practice as
the sun was from the earth.

“I’m waiting for you to go home and get a decent night’s sleep,” Megan’s voice shook her out of her reverie.

Cassie rose from behind the desk and flexed her shoulders
, took Megan by the arm and started towards the door.
“Go home, please. I’m nearly done and I can look after myself. Besides, isn’t
Thursdays
your bridge night with the ladies?”
At the elevators
,
Megan shrugged Cassie’s hand off her arm.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easy and bridge can wait. What are you still doing
here
? Is there anything I can help with?”

Cassie shook her head. “No, I’m just checking some figures. Now go home
.
”

Megan frowned. “
Joshua told me about the threats
…
Someone doesn’t like you poking into the old accounts and they made no secret about it.
”

Cassie squared her shoulders. “All the more reason to find out why they are nervous.” She
tapped her foot and waited for Megan to scan he
r finger into biometrics. If she could, she would’ve done it for her, but the system wouldn’t let Megan out of the elevator if her prints
weren’t
scanned before she got in.

“Makes me wonder about your father…”

“What about my father?”

Megan stared at Cassie for long time before she shrugged and retrieved
a tissue from her handbag
. “You’re just like
him
, you know.
Before his death
,
he also worked later and later and looked more worried and harassed.
I’d say you need a decent man and a string of babies to keep you out of the office at night.
”

“Megan …”

“Don’t you Megan me. I worked
with
your father for close to fifteen years and I saw how he
slaved away
at the office.
I swear, he spent more time here than with his latest mistress.” She held up her hand when Cassie drew a sharp breath. “
I saw him grow old before his time doing exactly as you are doing now. I don’t think I could stand losing another Adams.” She
pressed her thumb on the biometric scanner for the elevator
and waited
for the scan to complete and the green light to brighten.

“I know you think he didn’t care for
his children,
but he did. He loved you
and Dorian
so much he saw no other way to make sure you’d never have to suffer the way he did as a child. If he was overprotective, it was because he cared.”

Cassie sniggered and shook her head. “I’m sure he cared, Megan, but not about us. Everything revolved around
Adams Armoury Incorporated.
” She waved her hand in a circle. “This company was all that mattered to him. We were the trophies he took out to show off, but quickly
returned to their place
behind the sterile display glass.”

“If
that’s what you
believe, why
are
you doing this? Why
risk
your life
and work your butt off if you
still
hate him?”

Cassie shook her head. “Because I have to.”

Megan stepped into the elevator and pressed the button.
“
Yes, I guess you have to, being a
n
Adams.” She sighed. “
Anyway, call me if you need
anything
.”

Cassie nodded. “
I will.
Good night.”

Megan’s mumbled greeting was lost in the closing doors of the
elevator
.
Cassie glanced
over her shoulder at
the empty corridor and
stifled the unease settling in her stomach
. The
menacing
silence
brought back Joshua’s earlier warning.
Banning the thought, she started towards her office when a crash from Megan’s office stopped her in her tracks.
Blood
roared in her ears
. Everyone should have gone home by now. S
he jumped when a cleaner
and his cart exited
Megan’s office, his body swaying to the beat of the music
audible
only to him through the earphones plugged into his ears.
She forced her breathing to calm and
lowered
the hand she had placed over her heart
.

Joshua’s paranoia nearly rubbed off on her
.
No one could get in
to
the building without a biometric fingerprint scan.
She was not going to live in fear just because her assistant thought someone didn’t like her digging into the accounts of the company. Nobody knew what she
had already found
.
She peeked into Megan’s office and satisfied that nothing was amiss, walked into her own. She
closed the door behind her and
listened to the lock engage.
Sliding behind her desk, she quickly became engrossed in the figures before her. Figures that should
make
sense, but didn’t.

A scraping noise from the office next door had Cassie reaching for the phone despite her resolve not to give in to the panic
lurking
at the brink of her mind. She keyed in the number for the security in the lobby and listened to the silence on the line. Silence. No dial tone
.
N
o ringing of the phone in the lobby.

Her heart thudded in her chest and a film of perspiration erupted on her forehead. She grabbed her cellular phone and punched in the number for the lobby. The guard answered just as an explosion rocked the outer office.

Glass shattered behind her and Cassie dove under the table. The sprinklers popp
ed out and water drench
ed
the documents on her desk.
She
grabbed as many files as she could and tucked it under her jacket. Someone yelled her name from afar and Cassie
peeked over
the desk. No one was there. The yelling continued and Cassie opened her hands. The cellular phone dropped to the ground with the guard in the lobby’s voice booming from the speaker.

Straining to keep her voice calm, Cassie instructed the guard to alert the authorities and assured him she was fine. Ending the call, she
leaned
against the
panel of the
solid wood desk
and closed her eyes. When her heart rate calmed enough for her to breathe normally again, she
ducked her head some more and
pressed her palms against the
in
sides of the desk
drawers
to lift her off the floor and out of the wet slush.
The muscles in her arms protested as she kept herself suspended in the air without hitting her head on the underside of the desk.

She moved her hands to get a better grip and a
soft pop sounded
. A
panel of the desk gave way
revealing a cavity just above the floor behind the bottom drawer
. Cassie stared open-mouthed at the cavity
that
held three flash drives. Now why would her father hide the drives there? She could hear the emergency personnel in the passage making their way through the debris
,
which had to line the corridor. The information on the discs had to be important if her father felt the need to hide them instead of placing them in his personal safe. If she left them there, someone else might find them and if she took them with, they might land in the wrong hands. Cassie grabbed the drives and pushed them inside her bra, making sure they
she
tucked
them
firmly against her body.