Chapter 11
Eleven
E vie had been so angry with what happened to Lemon and Lemon Drop that she dove head first into clearing out the storage room. And as soon as she did that, she discovered just how far behind Sam was in digitizing his records. It had taken a few days, but she organized box after box in that dusty room and began pulling out every receipt and balance sheet she could find.
She’d grabbed the box of records with the previous month’s date slapped on the side earlier that morning. Sam had asked that she work on recent months first, in hopes of finding something that would point to a suspect, and that’s exactly what she planned on doing.
An hour in, and Evie had a pretty good grasp on what she was looking at. Different vendor accounts were slowly sinking into her memory, and everything balanced out. There was just one thing that didn’t add up. She’d just look again…
No, that couldn’t be right. She’d seen that account number before, but this time, there wasn’t an invoice that matched the withdrawal. Oh no. Evie’s head swam as panic clawed at her throat. It couldn’t be happening again .
“Hey.” She jumped at Sam’s greeting as he entered the office. “Woah, everything okay? I didn’t mean to scare you.”
She swallowed hard, her hand fluttering above her heart. “Everything’s fine. Sorry. I was just deep in thought and you startled me.” She looked back down at the ledger, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.
“You look flushed.” His eyes trailed over to the boxes spread out on the sofa and floor. “Did you carry all those in here by yourself?
“No. Zeke helped me with the really heavy ones. I only carried the light ones.”
She heard the grumble in Sam’s chest, but didn’t have the capacity to worry about his anger. There had to be an explanation for what she was seeing, and she needed to figure it out, fast, before she was out on the streets looking for a job and a place to stay.
“Anything I can help with?” He took a step closer to her, but she snapped the ledger closed.
“No. I don’t think so. I just need to look over some records to make sure everything makes sense.”
“Okay.” He walked over to his desk, opening his laptop.
He definitely knew something was wrong, because Evie never felt his eyes leave her as she fluttered around the office, grabbing receipts from the filing cabinets and printing expenditure reports from her computer. Her stomach felt tight, nausea bubbling to the surface as the minutes rolled by.
“Sam?” Evie said as she cleared her throat. She needed to get out of there and figure out what was happening. “I know I have a few more hours of work to do today, but I was actually thinking of leaving for the day. I’m not feeling all that well and think I could use a few minutes to lie down. Would that be okay?”
“Of course.” Worry etched across his features as he looked at her from behind his desk. “Do you need me to drive you into town to see your doctor? You looked so flushed when I walked in earlier, but now you do look a little pale. Have you had anything to eat?”
“I’m okay, I’ve just been feeling a bit nauseous today. Nothing some rest won’t cure. I’ll work a few hours tonight to make up for it.”
He waved her off. “Don’t worry about it. You’ve already whipped this office into shape over the past few weeks and I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. You take the rest of the day off and actually rest.”
“Thank you.” Tears threatened to spill over her lash line. Stupid pregnancy hormones. If he didn’t already think something was really wrong, he would as soon as he saw her cry.
Turning quickly so she didn’t have to try and cover her sudden outburst of emotions, Evie pushed the ledger and folders into her messenger back, pulled it up onto her shoulder, and flew out of the office.
“Hey, Mom.” Sam called from the doorway as he walked in the house.
“Hi, sweetie. I’m making pork chops tonight. Hope you’re hungry.”
“That sounds amazing. Oh, do you know if you have any chicken noodle soup in the freezer?”
“Do you feel like you’re coming down with something?” Sylvie put her hand to his forehead and worry creased the corners of her eyes.
“No, it’s not for me. I’m feeling perfectly fine. Evie left the office early today, said she was feeling nauseous and needed to lay down. I want to take some over to her in case she’s not up to cooking. I don’t think I saw her eat anything today.”
“Oh, that poor thing! There is nothing worse than feeling sick when you’re pregnant. I’m sure I have some in the freezer, I’ll warm it up for her and you can take it over. I made a few loaves of bread this morning too, and a lemon cake. We can package some up for her.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Sam kissed her cheek and went up to his room to change.
As he carried the food across the yard towards Evie’s apartment, he couldn’t help but think about how pale she’d looked when she left the office. Sam had noticed the tears that lined her eyes. Was she worried about how he would react to her asking for some time off?
Letting out a sigh, he rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. As he walked up the steps to her apartment, he prayed her tears were just a reaction to him granting her time off earlier. What if she was worried about something being wrong with her baby? Did low blood sugar cause nausea? He was about ready to kick his own ass for not researching it more.
He’d quickly realized the need to drop this soup off might actually be more for himself then for her. He needed to see that she was okay. Christ, his palms were getting sweaty as he waited for her to answer the door.
Something shuffled inside her apartment and when it finally opened, the sight nearly took his breath away.
“Evie? What’s wrong?” He watched her swipe tears out of her eyes. “Are you still not feeling well?”
“W-Why don’t you come in? I was actually just about to call you.”
“You were?” Sam walked into the apartment, looking around at all the papers she had scattered about. “What’s going on?”
She sat down on the edge of the couch, her hands running up and down her legs. He set the food he’d brought on the kitchen counter and joined her in the living room, careful to not step on any of the paperwork.
“Hey, you can talk to me, okay? Whatever it is, we can figure it out together.”
“I can’t make sense of it. I swear, I don’t know what’s going on. But I’m going to figure it out.”
“Are you okay? Nothing’s wrong with Jellybean, right? You said you weren’t feeling well and I’ve been worried all day.”
“That’s really sweet, Sam. This isn’t about the baby. It’s about your business. I found something I can’t explain when I was trying to balance the accounts.”
“You’ve already done so much, Evie. I don’t want you overextending yourself worrying about proving that you should be here. You’ve already done that one hundred times over.”
“I appreciate that, but I’m not sure you’re going to feel that gratitude towards me when I tell you what I’ve found.”
“Really? What did you find?”
“I think someone has been siphoning money out of your various accounts. It looks like a few dozen dollars at a time from the animal feed and wellness funds, larger amounts from the business expenditures. The largest sum I’ve found was for over two thousand dollars when you purchased that tractor the week after I got here.”
Sam was shocked. Out of everything that had run through his mind over the past few minutes, that hadn’t even been on his radar.
“How can you tell?”
“It’s just small discrepancies between invoice quotes and receipts. There are also withdrawals from various accounts I can’t verify.”
“Do you know who’s behind it? ”
“It’s…I don’t really know how to explain it. I-I don’t think…I mean, it’s not right.”
“Evie. Just tell me. I’ll handle whatever it is. If someone is breaking my trust by stealing from me, I’d like to know so that I can fire them.”
He watched all the color drain from her face. Her legs were shaking as she stood and stared pacing around her apartment.
“I understand why you would feel that way. But it doesn’t make sense. I need to look at the paper trail for a longer amount of time. I was only looking at recent months, but I’m sure if I open the ledgers from before I got here it would show that it was going on then too. It’s too weird of a coincidence and I know it’s not true…” She placed a hand on her chest and froze in place. Sam stood and walked towards her, grabbing her waist before she could topple over. He’d never seen her that worked up before, and it was freaking him out.
“Stop for a second, sweetheart. You’ll pass out if you keep going like that. Just breathe.”
After he made sure she’d taken a few deep breaths, he pressed for the information he’d asked for only moments before.
“It’s clear you think you know who it is. I just need a name, Evie.”
Frozen for a moment, she looked like she might not reveal anything to him. Nothing could have prepared Sam for what she said next.
“It’s mine.”
“I just need a name, Evie.” Oh lord, she was going to throw up, or pass out, and she didn’t know which one would be worse. This could not be happening again. Her last employers had been so quick to fire her, even after she’d shown evidence that it wasn’t her, they had stuck with the decision to terminate her employment.
She loved working at the Red River Ranch, everyone was so kind and it truly felt like they’d grown to respect her in such a short amount of time. How was she going to say goodbye to all this? How was she going to say goodbye to Sam?
“It’s mine.” She swallowed down bile as the words forced their way out of her mouth.
He stared at her for a second, blinking, and then he released his hands from her arms. Cold air swirled around her and she immediately wished his hands were steadying her once more.
“What do you mean it’s yours?”
“It all starts right around the time I came to work here.” Dark dots danced in her vision, and she worked overtime to blink them away.
“If you are stealing from me, why are you telling me about it?”
“Sam, I’m not. I’m not the one stealing from you, and I have no way to prove that to you right now except my word. Which I know doesn’t mean much because you’ve only known me for such a short amount of time, but I swear on my life, it is not me. I think someone is trying to make it seem like I’m taking funds from the business. ”
Evie desperately searched Sam’s face for any indication of his thoughts or feelings, but it was like trying to read a block of granite. He was giving her no signs of whether he believed her or not.
“Show me.”
“What?”
“Can you show me the withdrawals?”
“Yes.” She blinked for a moment, forcing her legs to carry her to the sofa where she sank down against the cushions. “ Could you hand me that stack of papers right there, I don’t trust my legs at the moment.”
He studied her, heat rising to her cheeks under the scrutiny, and then handed her the pile of paperwork she’d requested. When he sat next to her, the heat from his leg pressing into hers radiated up into her body and grounded her.
She swallowed thickly. “The differences are small at first, but the last entry I can find, like I said, it’s bigger. I swear to you, it wasn’t me. I just need to do a little more digging. It’s too much like last time.”
She watched understanding flash in his eyes.
“Your last job.”
“Yes. I haven’t said anything to anyone about what happened before. But if someone searched my name, they’d find the article where I was accused. Maybe whoever is doing this thinks I’m an easy target to pin this on because even though I was cleared, there is a history there of me being accused.”
“Evie. I believe you. You’ve never been anything but upfront with me, and even now, I doubt you would come to me after just taking a few thousand dollars. If you hadn’t caught this, by the time I caught up on balancing the books on my own, tens of thousands of dollars could have gone missing.”
Tears gathered in her eyes and she folded over herself.
“I thought you were going to fire me, Sam. I was so worried I wasn’t going to have a home for this baby. Thank you for believing me.”
“Is that why you felt sick all day?” He wiped away a tear from her face.
“Yes.”
“I wish you had just told me at work. There was no reason to worry yourself sick over this. If something had happened to you or Jellybean, honestly, I’d never forgive myself.”
“I didn’t mean to make you worry, I needed to find the source if I could before I gave you the information. But I just don’t think it’s possible with the information we have right now.”
“You don’t need to show me anything, I believe you.”
“No,” she said as she started to work through more paperwork. “I’d like to try and figure this out while you’re here. You might have the answer and I’m just not seeing it because I’m not familiar with all the accounts authorized to take payments from you.”
Twenty minutes passed and they still hadn’t made any progress. She ran through the words that Sam had said over and over in her brain, trying to get her heart to hear it, but she was panicked. He needed to know that she wasn’t behind this, and she needed to provide him with the concrete proof. It was vitally important to their working relationship.
Her stomach lurched, the room twisting and turning in an unnatural way. When was the last time she’d had something to eat? She’d had some oatmeal at breakfast but couldn’t remember eating anything more than that. Looking at the clock in her living room, she squinted her eyes to make the walls stop moving. Oh god, it was almost eight at night.
Evie needed to get something into her stomach fast, the queasy feeling threatening to overwhelm her as it gurgled in her belly. She stood, trying to get her bearings before walking to the kitchen. A moan escaped from between her lips. Trying to call to Sam for help, she closed her eyes against the spinning, and prayed he’d get to her before she hit the ground.