Isn't It Time Read Online Free PDF Page B

him. 
“Better?”
    “Nope.”
    Sighing, I reluctantly got up from his lap and headed toward
his bathroom.  “I’ll be back in a minute.”
    “Bring me back a pop, will you?” Jack asked.
    “Sure.”
    Jack’s current office used to belong to his father.  Between
that space and the empty office Jack had previously occupied was a smallish
connecting room, consisting of a kitchen/bar area and a full bathroom. The room
had doors on both sides, allowing privacy between the two offices.
    I walked into the bathroom, repaired the damage to my makeup
as best I could, and grabbed Jack’s Diet Coke from the small refrigerator.
    When I returned, I saw Jack had pulled his chair back to his
desk and was going through some paperwork.  He accepted the Diet Coke with a
distracted “thanks” and I returned to the chair I had previously occupied.
    “So,” I said.  “Are we ready to discuss the second thing?”
    “Yeah,” he said, looking up as he pushed his paperwork to
the side.  “I’ve been looking over the income statements for the past few years
because something has seemed a little off to me. Last night I went to see my
dad to see if he could confirm that and maybe shed some light on what could be
causing the problem.”
    “Off in what way?” I was a little confused because I hadn’t
heard of anything out of the ordinary.  Business seemed to be good; Jack had
managed to bring in a lot of new work, despite a sluggish economy. 
    “Well, gross revenues keep getting higher, but net profit
has been decreasing pretty steadily.  Which, obviously, means we have a problem
with our expenses.  Payroll seems fine, and I don’t think that could cause this
big of a decrease anyway without it being noticeable. I’ve done some
spot-checking on the invoices of some of our bigger suppliers and
sub-contractors and haven’t seen any large increases in individual pricing, so I’m
not exactly sure where the problem is.  But I have my suspicions.”
    “Which are…?”
    “Somebody is stealing a great deal of money from me,” he
said.
    I slumped back in my chair in disbelief.  “Holy shit!” I
exclaimed.
    “Yeah,” he said with a tight smile.
    I ran through possible suspects in my head.  I couldn’t come
up with anyone at all who I thought would have the balls to do such a thing. 
“Have you asked Frank what he thinks?” I asked.
    “No,” he said.  “And here’s why:  My dad and I went through
all the possible ways this could have been done and who in this office would be
in a position where they would be able to put something like that in motion. 
And Frank would be number one on that list.”
    “No way!” I exclaimed.  “Frank has been with your dad since
he opened the doors here!  They’re good friends, for Pete’s sake.  I can’t
believe he would do something like that.”
    “We don’t want to believe it, either,” he said.  “But we
can’t rule anyone out.  Except you, of course,” he added with a smile.
    “Well, thank you for that,” I replied gratefully.
    Jack’s dad had hired me for this job.  He was much like Jack
in personality and manner and I adored both him and Peggy.  They made it clear
that the feeling was mutual and over the years of my friendship with Jack, I
had spent a lot of time with them.
    “So what are you going to do about it?” I asked.
    “Well, my first priority, and the thing I’ll really need you
to focus on, is to perform an extremely confidential internal audit to see if
we can’t find the thief by ourselves. Luke will be around next week to help
where he can. And I’d rather not bring in outside auditors if I can avoid it.”
    “Okay, that might be a problem,” I said, frowning.
    “Why is that?”
    “I don’t exactly have top-notch analytical skills,” I
confessed.  It was true.  While I could easily put all those compliant numbers
where they were supposed to go, I was always at a loss to make any sense out of
the final product.  Frankly, I