Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
The phone rang, and Debbie picked it up eagerly, hoping it was a client returning to the fold. So many of them had left now, it was hard for her to keep track. Instead, her banker’s voice rang out loud and clear in her ear.
“Hi, Debbie. I’ve been trying to reach you for hours. We need to talk.”
Debbie sat up straight, her nerves jangling. It was never good when your bank account manager said they needed to speak with you. “What is it, Dan?”
He cleared his throat. “You’re running out of money.”
“How is that possible?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“You’re spending more than you’re bringing in. I wanted to give you a heads-up because I don’t know who is managing your finances over there, but I think you need to take a look at the books. Normally I wouldn’t say anything, but since we’re friends, I thought I should give you a call and see if everything’s okay. You’re one of my favourite clients, and since our lunch last week, it’s been eating away at me. You didn’t mention anything going wrong, other than Phil’s resignation, even though I questioned you about it. So, I couldn’t help wondering if you were out of the loop.”
Her head was spinning. She’d have to contact the accountant, Betty. Why hadn’t anyone alerted her to this? She knew they hadn’t operated in the black in recent months, but she hadn’t realised it was so bad. “Thanks for the call. You’re right, I wasn’t aware things had become so dire. We’ll see what we can find here.”
“Look… I’m sorry about this, Debbie. I should’ve said something before now.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s our responsibility to manage our finances, not yours,” Debbie said.
“Still, I’m sorry about this, Debbie. I hope you can get to the bottom of it.”
“Thanks again,” she said with a shake of her head. “I’ll let you know what we discover.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure out a way forward,” he encouraged her.
“Of course we will,” she said, although she didn’t feel nearly so certain as she sounded.
Debbie set the stack of papers down on her desk with a sigh. Going over the monthly financial reports was something she’d always dreaded doing. It was the kind of paperwork she generally preferred to delegate to someone else, and for the past year, she’d delegated much of it to Phil. Now Phil was gone, it was back on her desk, and she’d been going over it carefully for the past hour. However, she couldn’t make much sense of it.
She called her accountant and put her on speakerphone.
“Hi, Betty,” she said. “It’s Debbie Holmes. How are you?”
“Good to speak with you, Debbie. I’m glad you called. I had you on my list to phone today. We need to talk about your monthly reports.”
“Yes, I think we do. I can’t make it out. It’s too confusing.”
“Well, it shows that you’ve been making a consistent loss for the past six months.”
“I know we’ve had a few down months, but six? How is that possible? Business is good. We’ve got plenty of clients—billable hours, too. I don’t understand.”
Betty hesitated. “I spoke to Phil about this multiple times. He didn’t mention it to you?”
Debbie pressed her hands to her forehead. “No, he said it would all be fine, that it was a normal fluctuation.”
“You didn’t look at the reports?”
Sweat broke out across her forehead. “No, I trusted him to do that. He and I had meetings, and he told me we were on target to grow by ten percent this year.”
“That much is true,” Betty said. “You’re growing—as you say, your billable hours are up, as are your staff numbers. But your expenses were way up as well. You need to reduce your spending. As things stand, the partners won’t have any profit to share at year end.”
Debbie shook her head. “Where are these expenses coming from?”
“Clients, it looks like. Some of your largest clients seem to be costing you a lot to litigate. You should take a look at the line items, figure out where you’re haemorrhaging money, and make some changes, or your business won’t be operational within six to twelve months unless you can find a way to inject some cash into the bottom line.”
After she hung up with Betty, Debbie stared at the printed reports for another ten minutes, her eyes flitting over each line item listed. These expenses didn’t make any sense, but every one of the clients who had high charges against their accounts were managed by Phil. They’d gone with him to the new legal firm as well. As former clients, they wouldn’t be very open to talking to her about their accounts. She’d already called them each to try to get them to come back to her firm, and most had stopped taking her calls.
She dialled the first company, but as expected, her contact didn’t answer. She groaned as she hung up the phone. This was a nightmare. Why were the costs so high on those accounts? What had Phil been up to? It was all starting to make sense—his sudden and rapid departure, the missing money, the clients leaving en masse. There was something very underhanded that’d been going on beneath her nose for months, and she’d been too distracted and comfortable to notice.
She’d trusted him.
Her head spinning, she dialled the number for the local police. It took a long time, but finally she made it through the switchboard to a detective.
“I’m not sure what you want us to do,” he said after she’d finished relaying to him what she’d discovered.
“Can’t you investigate Phil for fraud?”
He sighed. “There’s not enough to go on. You say there are additional expenses against the accounts, but you don’t have any proof of wrongdoing.”
She scrubbed a hand over her face in frustration. This was going nowhere fast. “Yes, but I have a feeling…”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t investigate feelings. If you find some hard evidence or get a confession from your employee or a client, give me a call. Okay?”
Once again, she hung up the phone, this time with a sense of deep frustration. It seemed impossible that the police weren’t interested in investigating the fraud that she suspected had happened within her company. But it was true that she couldn’t prove it. She wasn’t even certain it had occurred. She’d have to look into it more deeply to see if she could discover anything concrete.
“Evelyne!” she called out through the open door of her office.
Her assistant hurried inside. “Yes?”
“Can you please take a look through these reports?” She handed the stack of papers over to Evelyne.
“Sure. What am I looking for?”
“Wherever you see a number that looks high in the expenses column, I want you to look it up and find the individual transactions. I’m looking for patterns. I want to know where this money is going. Thank you so much. This will really help me out—I’m struggling with all this extra client work and everything else that’s going on around here.”
“I’ll do my best.”
After Evelyne left with the reports, Debbie leaned back in her chair with a sigh of relief. Evelyne was very good at her job. She’d comb through the company finances, and if there was anything to find, she would find it.
There was a knock at the door, and Wendy walked in with a piece of paper in her hand. “Do you have a moment?”
“Sure, come on in.”
Wendy sat in the chair in front of Debbie’s desk. Her red curls were pretty around her face. Her brown eyes sparkled, and she smiled, displaying a dimple in her left cheek. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you, but it’s hard to get a hold of you lately.”
Debbie threw her hands in the air with a laugh. “Sorry! It’s been crazy. But I’m here now. So, how can I help you?” She leaned forward to listen.
Wendy placed the piece of paper on the desk in front of Debbie. “This is my letter of resignation.”
“What?” Debbie’s stomach tightened into a knot. “You can’t leave…”
“I’ve been offered a place elsewhere. And with Phil leaving, I can see the writing on the wall, Debbie. We all can. I know it’s time for me to move on. And I’m sorry that I’m leaving you like this—I know it puts you in a difficult position. But I have to think about my career and my family. I’ve got three children, and I need to put food on the table. I’m sure you can understand.”
Debbie nodded tightly. “I understand, of course.”
“Again, I’m sorry. I’ve communicated my intentions to my clients. I’ll let the rest of the partners know by the end of the day.”
After Wendy had left Debbie’s office, she felt as though she’d been run over. How many things could go wrong in such a short stretch of time? She knew what this meant. The partners had been talking about Phil’s departure. They would all leave as soon as they’d found somewhere to go, and the company would be split into pieces. The firm was called Holmes, Parkes & Ogden. Phil Parkes had left. Wendy Ogden had handed in her resignation. The only named partner left was Debbie, and she was close to retirement. It was the end of her firm.