The well-known man hadn’t said or done anything inappropriate for the workplace, and he hadn’t exactly made her feel uncomfortable, per se. It was just a sort of vibe he put off.
Intentional or not, the man was gorgeous, single, and he had a bank account so full the guy could finance a small country all its own. Yes, for all intents and purposes, Dennis Atkinson was the quintessential perfect man.
Yet when Natalie looked at him, she felt…
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
“Excellent.” He kept a strong hold of her hand a moment longer before slowly releasing his grip and letting her pull herself free. “You finally making a dent in all this?” His chin lifted toward the boxes on the table behind her.
“I think so.” Natalie went back to what she was doing before he showed up. “Audits like these can take weeks, sometimes months, to complete. Depending.”
“On?”
She picked up the last of the files still needing gone over and shrugged. “Lots of things, really. The size of the company definitely plays a part.”
Natalie began placing the folders in with the others. But as she started to adjust one of the many in her hands, a file from the center of the stack slid out of the bottom of the pile, landing neatly in the box resting on the table below her.
Wanting to keep them all in order, she reached inside the box and started to pick it back up. She stopped mid-grab when she realized this folder was different than the others.
This is wrong. This folder doesn’t belong here.
She frowned. Every other file in the mix was clearly marked with built-in labels specific to its contents. The one in her hand was blank.
Not only that, but all the other folders were also the same bland shade of tan. The unmarked folder in front of her was a light, creamy beige.
Enough of a difference to notice, but not so noticeable it was obvious when mixed with the rest.
Curious by nature, Natalie kept the folder in place inside the box and flipped it open. The contents she found were more than a little suspicious.
Hand-written notes. Pictures of planes and plane parts. Reports that looked like they’d been hastily copied, some of the captured images crooked with black space showing at their corners.
What is all this?
Per regulations, the only things that were supposed to be included in corporate files such as these were the company’s official printed reports, graphs, and of course, spreadsheets. Things like scribbled notes on photographs were not allowed.
A small, scribbled note on top of the folder’s contents stole her focus, and Natalie’s gaze zeroed in on its words.
FROST WA-800
Recert request vs fuel usage/cost
Embez? Traff? Both?
The cryptic notemade no sense to her at first, but then…
Embez? Embezzlement, maybe? But what is Traff?
Those unspoken questions spawned even more.
Did whoever wrote this mean they thought someone at the company was involved in some sort of illegal trafficking ring? Traffic was the first thing that came to mind, but when she put it together with possible embezzlement, she instantly thought of…
Trafficking.
And if that was the case—if the other contents included with the note were proof of criminal activity taking place within Frost Avionics, then why hide it inside a bunch of accounting files?
Why not take it all straight to the police?
“Bigger the company, the longer the audit, huh?” Dennis’s voice reminded her the man was still there.