Chapter 90 A Convenient Scapegoat
Without hesitation, Marcus picked up his intercom and called the accountant’s office.
“Sarah,” he said when the person on the other line picked up.
“Get in here. Now!”
Sarah Kline had been our accountant for the last four years.
She was what I called a perfect employee. She was quiet, diligent, and extra careful when it came to our finances.
She had somehow always caught inconsistencies before they became a problem.
Maybe those were just her masks anyway.
Two minutes later, we heard a soft knock on the door.
When she walked in, her gaze landed on Marcus who stood rigid behind his desk, then on me.
Her face went pale instantly.
“Is everything okay?” she said, her voice low.
Marcus didn’t waste time.
He slid the spreadsheets across the desk toward her.
“Explain these transfers!” he demanded.
She picked the spreadsheets up, and glanced through them.
I watched her eyeballs move as they scanned the first line, then the second. By the third, her face had gone completely blank.
“I… I didn’t authorize these,” she stuttered.
“Then who did?” he replied, his voice soft but firm.
“I didn’t… I swear… I didn’t.”
“The access code is literally on every single one, and you claim you didn’t do it?” I cut in.
She looked up at me, her eyes wide and filled with tears.
“I don’t know. Someone must have… someone must have used my credentials. I change my password every month… I…”
Her words started getting incoherent.
Marcus noticed that she was beginning to go off topic and banged his palm on the desk.
Sarah flinched.
“Someone used your login to siphon a fortune from this company and you are telling me you have no idea as the accountant?”
“I promise I don’t know anything about this. I log out every night. I lock my computer. I…” her voice trembled as she spoke.
“Clearly not well enough,” Marcus snapped.
I watched her closely, and I saw how terrified she was.
But I had seen good liars before.
One of them brought me to this world.
“Sarah,” I said quietly.
“If you know something… anything at all, you need to tell us now before this goes to the police.”
The tears that had clouded her eyes rolled down her cheeks.
“I don’t know,” she whispered, her voice still shaking.
“I swear, I would never…”
Before she could finish her sentence, Marcus turned away from her, and stared out at the window.
“Maybe she will confess to the police,” he said without turning around.
Marcus didn’t look at her when he spoke.
His gaze was on me the whole time.
I guess that was to show how angry he was towards her.
“Please, sir,” Sarah fell to her knees, tears welling in her eyes uncontrollably.
“I know nothing about it,” she added, rubbing her palms together.
“Something about this doesn’t feel right,” Marcus said quietly.
“We should let the police settle this,” he added.
He then reached for his phone and called the police division close to us.
Within minutes, the police arrived and took Sarah away while she pleaded desperately for mercy.
At that moment, mercy was not in my dictionary because either way, we were fucked if we don’t get the money back.
Marcus didn’t sit back down after Sarah left.
He stayed by the window watching the police lead Sarah into their car.
“Did you see the way she froze when I showed her the spreadsheet? That… definitely wasn’t confusion,” he said, walking back to stand behind his desk.
“But how could she do that? She caught that double-billing error from the lighting supplier last spring. She…” I replied, but Marcus cut me off.
“Come on, Alex… She played the long game. She built trust, got full access, then started scheming when she thought we were too distracted to notice.”
I exhaled slowly.
“We will get every last cent from her back. I will make sure of that,” he assured.
“Okay…” I said slowly.
But something still didn’t sit right.
By the time I walked out of his office, I was already mentally drained, but I had to keep going.
The rest of the day dragged on without any update from the police.
All we heard was that she insisted she couldn’t do anything to harm the company and that it was a set up.
After that, we heard nothing more.
After work, I sat in my car outside the office, staring blankly at the people walking by, with the windows rolled down.
My head was still spinning from everything that happened when I heard some workers talking about how Joan and Dave were a trending couple.
“Trending couple,” I muttered under my breath, a knot tightening in my stomach.
I picked up my phone and scrolled through the blogs hoping to see something about it.
Lo and behold, the picture of both of them all cozied up stared right back at me.
“I fucked up,” I mumbled to myself.
“He’s better than me. Of course he is.”
I hated how easily that thought came.
And worse… how much I believed it.
I was jealous, even though I knew I had no right to be.
I dropped my phone on the passenger seat beside me and rested my head on the steering wheel, gripping it tightly that my knuckles almost hurt.
After a while, I started the engine and drove out of the parking lot.
As I was driving, I couldn’t help but divert my thoughts to the fact that I was going home to meet the architect of my problem.
CASSANDRA’S POV
I was munching on popcorn while watching my favorite show in Alex’s living room… oh, I mean our living room when my phone buzzed.
I checked my phone screen and it was Mrs. Hart.
That witch of a woman.
I flexed my cheek bones, then picked up the call.
“Mrs. Hart, it’s so lovely to hear from you ma’am,” I said.
“Meet me at the café on Park Lane in thirty minutes,” she replied simply.
No pleasantries, no sweet talks.
Before I could say anything else, she hung up.
“What’s going on?” I asked myself.
Well, I wouldn’t know until I got to the location.
The café was quiet when I got there, Mrs. Hart was sitting at a corner table, her back straight, the pearls on her neck gleaming and looking like a society matriarch.
I sank onto the seat opposite her and put on a practiced smile.
“I didn’t know you were in town,” I muttered.
She didn’t return the smile nor did she respond to my question.
Instead, she slid a photograph across the table.
“Can you explain this?”
I took a look at the photograph and my stomach dropped.
It was a secret I thought was perfectly hidden.
“I… I…”