Not What It Seems Ch. 10

Jared shook his head in frustration. "You can choose to believe me or not, but Naomi and I never had a relationship. In fact four years ago, she actually had a mild attraction to you. She's like a kid sister to me. And besides she's not that kind of girl. A few weeks back I called her to check something for me, so I think today's call is about that."

Ryan looked seriously at Jared. But then his next words totally threw his off balance. "Naomi was attracted to me? Oh my god, why the fuck did you not tell me back then?"

The tension in the room immediately washed away as they both laughed. Ryan wiped the tears from his eyes, "no but seriously, Naomi's kinda hot. You know she has that clichéd hot librarian thing going on."

"She was also seventeen at the time, unless you wanted your ass in jail. And you had a girlfriend at the time. Seriously I wanted to tell you but you loved that bitch, so what can I say?"

"If you had told me I would have broke up with that bitch."

It was true. Ryan's girlfriend, Tiffany had almost destroyed him. Jared hated her.

"Besides, I could have waited until she was older..."

Jared laughed, but then backtracked on what Ryan said earlier, "I can't believe as my friend you'd think I would do that to Alin."

"Well I couldn't believe you'd treat Alin like shit. Do you really think I'd be surprise if you cheat on her? You do have a reputation you so meticulously carved out for yourself.

"I know. And there's not a single day I don't regret it." Jared replied sadly.

Sensing that he had hit a raw nerve Ryan said, "Okay, cheer up buddy. Look you might be a total dick, but lately you've been on your best behaviour, I think I may put in a lot more nice words in front of Alin."

Jared rolled his eyes. "Geez, thanks so much. Anyway I have to return her call. If I don't, do you know how hard it is to get hold of her? And besides... I can introduce you two properly if you're still interested-"

"No it's okay." Ryan said a little too quickly.

Jared arched one brow, "I've warned you... Hallie's married."

Ryan threw the phone at him, "Go return the call."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Jared had called back and they arranged to meet at his apartment. He asked his driver to pick Naomi up. When she got there, she was surprised to see Ryan answering the door. Few years back she had a slight school girl crush on him, but at the time he had a girlfriend and she was seventeen, so obviously he had not even given her one look. Nothing came of it and now being a tad older and wiser, she knew the power she had on men. Ryan was too soft for her manipulative games. Nice guys were no longer her type because they never indulge in mind games that she had come to love.

"Ryan, good to see you." She said but there was a mischievous and flirtatious tone to her voice as they embraced each other.

"You too, Naomi."

While the two got reacquainted, Jared was back in the room. Clearing his throat he said slightly amused, "Seriously will you two get a room?"

Naomi glared at him mockingly, and then she smiled, "Feeling left out are we, Mr Valentine?"

"No." he retorted. "Just enjoying a private moment between my best friend and a young professional woman, Miss T."

She narrowed her eyes at him but the small smile contradicted her almost evil stare, "Let's gets down to business then shall we?"

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Sprawled on Jared's floor were all the documents, paper work Naomi had brought with her. The three of them started off looking at the enormous amount on his dining table, but eventually as she got out more and more documents out, they decided a bigger space was needed.

So sitting on the plush carpet, Jared stifled through the paper and couldn't believe what he was seeing. Three months ago, Jared had confided in Rita and Tom about the possibility that someone was selling company secrets. Together, they had looked into the people who were at the meeting that were supposed to be confidential. It was strange but somehow Jared's intuition was he could trust Tom and Rita. But then again looking back at the evidence in front of him, his intuitions were all wrong and he was obviously not very good at seeing through people. He listened to Naomi as she told him what she had found.

"You know looks like your intuition was right." She said and Jared couldn't help but inwardly groan. "A few weeks ago when you told me to check every single executives and upper management involved in your meetings, and also Charles I was pretty sure this was an easy enough task. I started at the lowest level and worked my way up. Because usually the small potatoes are the ones that won't be selling you out. When I came up with nothing, I decided not to dwell any longer so I thought I had to look through Charles information. I was pretty sceptical, I mean, I remember that guy, a little smooth for my liking, but I remember he was your right hand man."

She noted Jared's reluctant nod, so she carried on.

"Well anyway here's the thing. I started with his phone records as that's probably the least information guarded by security process. I pulled Charles's last three years phone records. Nothing strange in the beginning, his contacts were consistent. Pretty much every outgoing, ingoing calls were the same, but then I found a pattern. He would always get A LOT of calls from one particular number." She gestured to the phone record "This one that ends in 347, always calls him. Now you may think that's not strange, but if you keep looking through the phone records you'll see that this number either doesn't call him but when it calls him, it really does not stop. In one period, especially five months ago, the number had called Charles 102 times in the space of two weeks, that's an average of 7 times a day. But interestingly, there was another thing I noticed while going tireless through the records. You see a number that ends in 215? It doesn't call that frequently. But after exchanging a few calls with 215, the calls from 347 stops. You guys see it?"

Both Ryan and Jared looked at the highlighted phone records, and wondered how Naomi could have spotted that. The 215 number was insignificant, so they were pretty amazed at her attention to detail. Looking at a three year period, however, and Naomi's highlights, the evidence becomes more significant and clear.

"So obviously 215 is an important person to Charles. And 347 is the nuisance." Ryan interjected.

"Uh-huh. I checked up 347 actually, and here's the good part, the man is called Derek Simmons. And guess what he is? He's a debt collector. And conveniently hasn't changed his number since the 18^th century."

"And 215?" Jared asked.

"It's a pay as you go cell. No registered user. And according to the number's phone records, Charles is the only person they call so obviously there's something not quite right. And yet again, works in favour for us as this mysterious person hadn't decided to change number since the swinging sixties."

Ryan smiled, "You and your lame jokes."

Naomi smiled batting her eyelashes innocently in an exaggerate manner, "What jokes?"

"Girls, can we concentrate on this?" Jared cut in shaking his head as a parent would as he scolded his children.

Jared looked at the phone records and knew where this was leading to and he didn't like it one bit.

Naomi flashed a mischievous grin at Ryan, as if they'd been caught doing something bad by their dad. She turned back to Jared all seriousness and carried on, "Well, the next thing is bank account. And a little off topic, you pay Charles, $50,000 a month?! For doing what? Sitting at his desk jerking off? And he gets an end of year bonus too?"

It still amazed him how he allowed her to talk to him like that. She was his employee after all, but he had a soft spot for Naomi, and in a way she was right. Why the fuck was Charles paid $50,000 a month?

"Anyway, his main expenditure and earnings were passing through his main bank account. A few assets, such as properties, shares locked into investment accounts. But, you see Charles doesn't just work hard and play hard. His motto is imbalanced. His play hard more than outweighs his work hard... Jared, he loves to gamble, and gamble big. He's quite infamous in Vegas actually... for being the worst poker player and a big tipper for strippers. With all his assets, his lifestyle will eventually catch up with him, throw in the fact he loves the extravagant and luxury things in life, I was wondering how the hell he pays for it. Surly his assets would be depleted the way he was living his life.

Interestingly though, when he gambles, he pays in cash when he loses or use his sister's account. I said to myself, who the hell carries, over a $100,000 in cash? I mean you could if you were one of those arrogant idiots on Wall Street, but for someone who earns $50,000 a month? Not likely. Also, what sort of sister would let you pay your debt with her account? Unlikely, so I did a check on his sister's details."

Naomi took out a pile of statements, "Alongside her husband, Charles's sister owns a catering company and guess who's been supplying for the corporate functions for BankSafe?"

"Green's Catering Company..."

"Yep Green is her married name. If you look at the money being transferred to Green's, every so often he transfers an amount to them. Not too much so that it became suspicious, but enough to be laughing all the way to the bank, literally."

Jared remembered this now. A junior accountant had found problems with the accounts and had taken this up with the head of finance. Fearing an impending fiasco similar to the scandal five years ago, the department had taken this to Jared. Since the sums at the time were not a big amount, Jared had appointed Charles to investigate further. Of course the real truth was swept under the rug. Fifteen months later, the junior accountant had been fired. The reasons senior management stated was because of negligence and bad work ethics.

BankSafe always held lavish corporate events at least on a monthly basis so it was not a surprise to have spent so much on catering for these events, since it was a good way to build relationship with existing and potential clients whilst raising their profile. But to know Charles stole from him? No one stole from him and expected to get away with it.

"How long has this been going on?"

"Three years. But that's not only it..."

To be honest he didn't want to hear anymore. If stealing from BankSafe wasn't the worst thing, he didn't know what was.

"You see after finding out this piece of shit was stealing from you, I had a gut feeling that this wasn't just it. Yeah he stole from company accounts, but surly his sister and her husband would want to take a cut from the stolen money and it still didn't add up with the amount he was losing in Vegas and his lifestyle. The next thing I found out was his offshore accounts. This was not easy to find. A few years back when his father passed and left him an inheritance, to avoid further taxation his father set up a few offshore accounts in Luxemburg and Cayman Islands for Charles and his sister."

Jared and Ryan looked at each other. This was getting interesting and Naomi seemed to enjoy torturing them with her brilliant narrative. This was more like a a movie script more than anything with her animated narrative completed with hand gestures.

"In those offshore accounts, it had been pretty inactive for the past few years, maybe the only transactions being the stolen money, which were later put into a safe deposit box. But by 2005 onwards there were large amounts transferred into his offshore accounts. The payments weren't a regular sum. But it was paid in interval. For example, if you look at the money paid into his account in 2005, the sum totalled $1.5million. Of course, Charles is not a total idiot. It's obvious the money was something that shouldn't be seen in daylight. Knowing this, Charles didn't put all his eggs in one basket and has distributed this money through to several accounts, including his sister's. Regardless, the same account was funding Charles and his sister's with the money being paid in a four month interval. It did make me wonder why. Initially I couldn't trace the account paying him, but the person continued to pay him in 2006, 2007, 2008 and the latest payments were made almost a month ago..."

Naomi stopped talking, letting her words sink in. Jared looked at Charles offshore account's statement, studying it: November 2005, October 2006, February 2007, August 2008, and July 2010. He looked up at her and in that moment she knew he understood what she was trying to say. She nodded in understanding but she continued to talk,

"In the beginning, I had hit a dead end. I couldn't find out who the account holder was. The security was tough and my contacts wouldn't give me any other details. So, I looked at the dates. There must be some connection there. So I looked into last year. I thought to myself why wasn't Charles paid last year, in 2009? Why? Then I remembered why I was looking into this the whole time. Sometimes the most obvious thing is the hardest thing to find. You wanted me to find out who was possibly selling company secrets. I remembered last year BankSafe had a very good year with annual turnover of almost $2 billion. So maybe that explained why he wasn't paid: there was no scandal for you."

"Fuck..." Ryan said, and looked up at Jared. But he was speechless, even though he had pondered whether Charles was behind this, as more evidence pointed a finger to his loyal ally, there was no way he could further delude himself.

"But a little bit of guess work can't prove it, can it? I mean it was just a theory I developed. But then I looked back at his statements. He was paid the most in 2005 and this year. There must be something he was doing right. Hell, he was paid more than what he makes in a year plus bonuses. Then, I remembered. In 2005, you broke up with Alin and the scandal followed. This year, you broke up with Alin and the scandal broke out..."

"Haltor, that fucker..." Jared said and clenched his fists.

"So I decided to work backwards. I know Charles was paid, I mean it's crystal clear the main culprit pulling the strings, but I wanted solid proof as do you, so I looked into John Haltor's finances. I found that he's been transferring money into one of his senior manager's account as a form of 'gift' and personal bonuses, so as not to rouse suspicions, everything was done in offshore accounts- yet again hard to trace. And through this, this senior manager can transfer the money to pay Charles. Of course Haltor is fortunately not brain dead- yet. He made sure the amount he transferred to this guy wouldn't add up to what Charles was given, but, rather disappointingly, since I just complimented him," Naomi took out the statements for this year, "You see, this year Haltor's negligence has caused him a great deal. Not only has he directly transferred money from his Swiss account into Charles's Luxembourg account, without doing all that middleman bullshit, he also decided to use that same account for tax evasion and possible money laundry activity, which may I add, I'm sure is not a common activity for you rich people," Naomi winked at him.

Though quickly, Naomi resumed the professional manner to deliver the big blow to Jared, "In 2005, Haltor, using his middleman transferred $3million into Faye Morlan's account-"

"What?!" Ryan said in shock, whilst Jared continues to remain speechless.

She continued, "As for Charles with all the money Haltor pays him, obviously he was able to live the lavish lifestyle and avoid gambling his way into an early deathbed. Haltor would always call him with his 215 number to offer a proposition and help stop those debt collectors..."

Suddenly it was all so clear. Jared was angry, angry at himself for letting this happen. How could he have been so blind? Pushing away all those that cared for him and letting his enemies that close. Jared clearly remembered the day Faye Morlan came to his office five years, oblivious to him at the time, she was putting on a display for Alin. The truth coming out should have been a great moment for him. Instead it was bittersweet, for he had lost the most important thing to him. Those involved would pay very dearly he vowed silently to himself. But for now this was not his priority...

"Naomi, I... what you've done for me...how can I ever repay you?" Jared said as he looked up at her. If he was paying for something, he expected a damn good job of it, but what Naomi had done for him was beyond the call of duty. The evidence she had produced was compelling. He had no doubt she must have put every waking hour trawling for information, not to mention all the favours she owed her contacts.

Smiling brightly at him, Naomi said, "you can first of all, beg your girlfriend for forgiveness, tell her what an idiot you are, then get married, let me be the godmother of your children and-" she took a pen out from her bag and wrote on a piece of paper. Sliding the paper to him, she watched as Jared smiled, "good doing business with you, Mr Valentine." He heard her say.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Charles sat outside Jared's office nervously, waiting He wiped his sweaty hands on his suit as he watched the wall clock tick by, time seemed to stand still.

As the major shareholder and CEO, Jared occupied the top floor of the BankSafe headquarters'. The grand surroundings and the brilliant view looking over Manhattan, whoever was invited to Jared's office came only for two reasons... Charles looked back up at the wall clock. It was 2:30pm, 3 minutes and 42 seconds since he last looked at it. He was extremely agitated. Usually Jared would never contact him via his secretary, Sara. As Jared considered Charles almost like a close friend, their working relationship was on some level more casual than professional. Suddenly, Charles felt sick. Did Jared find out about...?

"Mr Francis? Sir?" Charles didn't realize Sara was talking to him until he felt a hand on his shoulder. "Mr Francis, Mr Valentine is ready to see you."

Charles got up and at the same time wiped his hands on his suit trousers. He had never felt so worried before. This was more nerve-wracking than the first time he had met Haltor...

"Charles take a seat."

He complied and watched as Jared shuffled the documents. He couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. If anything, Jared seemed more upbeat than usual. Without looking up at Charles, Jared continued, "So Charles, tell me how long have you been working for me?"

"E-eleven years"

Jared was silent. Only the sound of pen on paper could be heard as Jared signed documents. Charles continued to restlessly move in his seat. He couldn't comprehend what was going on. He could feel sweat gather on his forehead.

"Hmm..." Jared finally said as he suddenly watched Charles intently. "You have been with me for that long, haven't you? I still remember when I first started out at 25. I had some funds, and you were the first guy I hired. Fresh out from college with a degree from NYU with top honours in your class, you asked me to give you a chance and that you weren't just book smart..."

Charles waited as the words Jared was about to speak hung in the air. A sinister feeling crept in and Charles felt bile in his throat.

"...but you know what, Charles? I'm glad I've given you that chance. I so remember the third year into our business, you managed to bag the first major contract for me. I must admit you're a smooth son of a bitch. Year on year the company has flourished. The second quarter shows that we're up 27% compared to last year. Eleven years ago, I had ambition and confidence that BankSafe would go far, and I was right. But I was more right about you. Jared got up sat on the corner of his desk and pat Charles on the back. "I'm glad I gave you a chance. Someone who's been with me for eleven years deserves more than $600,000 a year. I'll give you a 35% pay rise with bonuses. I'll backdate the payment from last year."