She turned to Wes. “Mr. Warner asked me to do an internal audit of the financial records of Walsh Oil Drilling Corporation for the past several years. Walsh Oil Drilling is a wholly owned subsidiary of Walsh Enterprises so we have legal purview over—”
Wes waved a hand to cut her off. “I’m not interested in the legal ins and outs of corporate structure. I’m confident that Craig is operating within the law to do the audit.”
She adjusted her line of thought and continued. “Yes, well, I looked at last year’s records first. I compared the original receipts, billing documents and logged work hours against the financial reports. And I found several major discrepancies. Based on that, I started going back further and looking at previous years.”
“And what did you find, Miss Grant?” Wes asked.
“More of the same. Somebody’s been skimming funds from this company over at least a fifteen-year period. Maybe since the founding of the company itself seventeen years ago.”
Wes definitely looked interested now. “How much money are we talking?”
“Millions. As much as two million dollars the year the company made a major oil strike and had a windfall income spike.”
Wes whistled low between his teeth. “Any way to tell who was taking the cash and cooking the books?”
She shrugged. “Mark Walsh himself signed off on the earliest financial reports. If he wasn’t taking the initial money himself, he was certainly aware of who was and how much he was taking. After his first death …” The phrase was weird enough to say that it hung her up for a moment. But then she pressed on: “… somebody kept taking it. I can’t read the handwriting of whoever was signing off on the financial documents, but it appears to have been the same signature for the past fifteen years.”
Wes glanced over at Warner. “You weren’t kidding when you said I’d want to hear this.” To Rachel he said, “Who else knows about this?”
“Nobody. Just me and Mr. Warner.”
Wes nodded, thinking. “I’d like to keep it that way for a while. This may be just the break we’re looking for.”
She frowned. “Huh?”
“In the Walsh murder investigation.”
“You think whoever killed Mark was helping him skim money from his companies and killed him over it?” she asked in surprise.
Wes shrugged. “I wouldn’t want to speculate. I just know that Mark Walsh was damned secretive, and it’s been nearly impossible to learn much about his life over the past fifteen years. If nothing else, you may have just answered how he was able to pay for his ongoing existence without his family knowing anything about it. Can you give me a complete rundown of how much money went missing and when, Rachel?”
He was using her first name now? Was that a good sign? “Uhh, sure. I can have it for you in a day or so. I’ve got a few more years’ worth of records to review and then I’ll be able to compile a report.”
“That would be great. And, Craig, thanks for calling me.”
The two men shook hands and Wes turned and left. Craig sat down quickly, mopped his forehead with a tissue and then tossed the tissue in the trash. He didn’t look good. His skin was pale and pasty and he had that uncomfortable look of someone who was contemplating upchucking.
“Can I get you a glass of water, sir?” she asked in concern.
“Yes, thank you.”
She went over to the wet bar on the far side of the room and poured him a glass of water. She carried it to his desk. “Are you feeling all right, Mr. Warner?”
“It’ll pass. I’ve been having these spells for a couple of weeks.” He smiled wanly at her. “I’m a tough old bird. I’m not about to go anywhere.”
She smiled back at him.
“What’s this about a shot dog?” he asked.
Likely he was just looking to distract himself from throwing up. She told him briefly about Brownie and his injuries and Finn coming over to perform surgery on him. She left out the part about Finn’s bitter anger toward her.
“You’ve got a good heart, Miss Grant.”
She smiled at her boss. It was a rare moment when anyone in this town said something nice to her. She savored it.
“As soon as you’re done with those last financial reports, why don’t you take the rest of the day off and go look after your four-legged houseguest?”
She nodded, touched by his kindness. “Thank you, sir.”
He waved her out of the office. She suspected he was losing the battle with his stomach and wanted a little privacy to get sick into his trash can. Poor man. She hoped he felt better soon.
Finn helped Damien string barbed wire all day. The hard labor felt good and helped him burn off a little bit of the residual stress from last night. He still wasn’t entirely recovered from that panicked call from Rachel Grant. The woman had about given him a heart attack. Good thing she’d agreed to stay the hell away from him forever. He couldn’t take much more of that from her.
“Anything on your mind?” Damien finally asked late in the afternoon.
Finn looked up surprised. “Why do you ask?”
“You’re working like a man with a chip on his shoulder.”
“What? I can’t come out here and help string a fence out of the goodness of my heart?”
Damien cracked a rare smile at that. “Not buying it.”
“When did you get so perceptive?” Finn grumbled.
Damien shrugged. “Prison’s a tough place. Gotta be good at reading people if you want to stay out of trouble.”
Finn was startled. To date, Damien hadn’t said more than a few words about his time in jail. “Does it feel strange to be out?” he ventured to ask.
Damien shrugged. He pounded in a metal stake and screwed the fasteners onto it before he finally answered. “It’s surreal being back home. Didn’t think I’d ever see big open spaces like this again. I missed the sky. It goes on forever out here.”
Finn looked up at the brilliant blue sky overhead. Yeah, he might go crazy if he never got to see that. “How’d you do it? How did you keep from losing your mind?”
“Who says I didn’t lose it?” Damien retorted.
Finn didn’t say anything. He just waited. And sure enough, after two more posts, Damien commented, “About a year in, I beat the shit out of guy who chose the wrong day to cross me. Growing up with all you punks for brothers served me well. I knew how to handle myself in a fight.”
Finn grinned and passed Damien another fastener while he started in on the next post.
Damien continued reflectively. “I got thirty days in solitary. A month in a box broke something in me. It was like I lost a piece of myself. The fight went out of me. It became about just surviving from one day to the next. I played a game with myself. How long could I live in there without losing it again? I made it 4,609 days. And that was when I got word that Walsh had been found dead for real this time and I was going to be released.”
Finn shuddered. “God, I’m sorry—”
Damien cut him off with a sharp gesture. “What’s done is done. If I learned nothing else in the joint, I learned to keep moving forward. Don’t look back. I live my life one day at a time. No apologies. No regrets. It’s over.”
Finn nodded. His brother was a better man than he. No way could he be so philosophical about a miscarriage of justice costing him fifteen of the best years of his life.
They knocked off when the