Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
I turn down the executive hall, checking the time. Todd texted me this morning.
He texts me a lot, actually. It’s always memes that were barely funny five years ago and therefore definitely not funny now. I don’t even know where he finds these blurry JPEG relics from the past. A chain email?
I don’t usually respond to his texts unless they’re directly work related, but like death and taxes, they just keep on coming.
This morning’s text was about this impromptu meeting. Despite walking Paige to her dorm, I’m still right on time. I knock once and then let myself into his office since his door’s already open.
He sees me and nods. “Cole, good. Come on in, son. And shut that door behind you, will you?”
Being referred to as “son” by Todd is nausea inducing, but I do as he says, closing the door.
He’s standing at his window, cracking open peanuts and trying to drop the empty skins into a trash can at his feet. Trying being the operative word. His aim is off; most of the shells wind up on the floor. When he sees me notice, he kicks the mess with his foot, trying to disperse it. Yup, that oughta do it.
“Take a seat. You want some peanuts?”
He shakes the two-gallon bag in my direction.
I pat my stomach. “Had a big breakfast. Thanks, though.”
“Ah,” he grumbles. “Trying to be careful with that dainty figure of yours?”
Dainty. Right. A tanker truck is dainty compared to Todd.
But I don’t say this. Of course not. I merely nod because with Todd, it’s best to say less. If I’m not careful, eventually I’ll put my foot in my mouth one of these days. He’ll figure out what I really think about him, and then the jig is up. I’d hate for that to happen when I can practically smell my freedom. Paige’s too.
I’m officially onto him. Even with the hurricane, I’ve been working around the clock on this dilemma with Todd. Connie in accounting finally sent over the thick packet of expense reports I asked for a couple of weeks ago. I’d requested everything from the last year, hoping it would be enough. Turns out, it was.
I started running through them meticulously, day by day. Tracking the routine expenses of a resort as large as Siesta Playa is no easy feat. What I was searching for was akin to finding a needle in a haystack. Once I realized that I could rule out any expense reports that didn’t include Todd’s signature, my stack shrunk by a sizable amount. In the expense reports from March, I found my first discrepancy. It was a bill for $5,458.02 paid to Turtle Cove Equipment, LLC. The bill was signed off by Todd, and it stood out for two clear reasons. For one, on the expense report under “Description” it simply read: “Entertainment and Hospitality Department—supplies and equipment.” On top of that, there were no receipts submitted with the report. None.
It should have immediately bounced back when he submitted it. Expense reports have to include itemized receipts—that way they can be easily tracked and verified. If this random LLC was providing us with, say, scuba equipment, there would have been a receipt to show for it.
I’d imagine the accounting department came back to Todd with these issues, but Todd likely used the power of his director title to push it through, no questions asked.
In May, again, Todd signed off on another bill from Turtle Cove Equipment, LLC, for close to $10,000 using the same generic description. In July, there was another bill for $35,000.
At first, I didn’t outright assume these were inaccurate or fraudulent expense reports. We have a large entertainment and hospitality department that encompasses all the indoor and outdoor activities available for our guests. Sailboats, snorkel gear, yoga mats, bingo-night supplies—it all comes out of the E&H budget. All their equipment has to be maintained and routinely replaced, and that gets expensive.
But . . . then I remembered a string of annoying texts from Todd that came through in late July, where he was bragging about the shiny new Corvette he’d just purchased.
Cherry red. You likey?
The text included a picture of him posing in front of the car trying to do a cocky power stance with his legs spread wide and his arms folded over his massive chest. Woof.
It’s not out of the question that a person in his position could afford a car like that, but he’d just purchased a boat the month before—I knew because he texted me about that as well—and Todd doesn’t strike me as the type of guy to be that savvy with money. A new boat and a new car? Something wasn’t adding up . . .
Now, Todd tosses another peanut into his mouth, and then he swipes his hands together to get rid of some of the peanut dust. When that doesn’t work well enough, he wipes his palms on the back of his pants.