Husband you've abandoned me. Fine, I'll focus on raising my son - Chapter 256: The culprit

Chapter 256: The culprit

JASMINE’S POV

As Keith ’slept’ on the couch, I went through the documents he had put out. At his desk.

I decided to check the most recent project Keith said he had noticed something was suspicious. With the gathered invoices and reports. I confirmed and the documents added up several invoices, receipts.

It was early in the afternoon when Keith woke up. He sat up on the sofa and looked at me seated at his desk. After a moment, he then got up from his seat and came towards me.

“Found anything so far?” He asked as he came behind me by the desk. His arm casually draped around me and onto the arm of the chair on the other side.

“I’ve been able to confirm the miscellaneous expenses of this project,” I said as I showed him the calculations I had done.

“The most recent project with a 16 million budget was done a month ago. There is a total of 4.6 million missing,” I informed him. “The project only cost 10.4 million in reality.”

Keith checked my calculations, his face tense, as he read through them.

He then scoffed as he put the document down. “How long has this been going on?” He asked in shock he then turned away for a moment and went to the window/sliding doors of the office. They overlooked the estate gardens outside.

“Money has been stolen from the company for at least five years now. I can’t believe this,” he said, sounding ashamed. ” I felt something was wrong, but never knew…Now my company is being threatened to get taken away.”

We then took a break and had lunch. Afterwards, we continued to go through the other recent documents Keith had been suspicious of.

By the end of the day, we had finished going through 2 more financial reports of other projects Keith had noticed and felt something wasn’t quite right. We thoroughly dissected and checked all the reports now that we knew to check all expenses in the miscellaneous sections. We confirmed that more money was, in fact, missing.

Keith and I went on another break for dinner and to wash up before meeting again in his office to finish going through the rest of the financial documents. I had just finished showering in the bathroom of my bedroom. Upon coming out, with my bathrobe wrapped around my body, I went to my ned and lay on it.

I saw my phone on my bedside table and took it.

I was scrolling through it, going through different apps. I had discovered that Louis’ number was blocked the day before. I also saw several missed calls from him when I was unconscious and shortly after I had woken up.

So far, I hadn’t tried to call or communicate with Louis. I’m sure Keith had noticed that, and hopefully, that gave me ’brownie points’ to some extent.

I turned to social media apps. When I opened Stargram. Instantly, many stories of the people I follow appeared on my for you page. There was no one I could talk to about my situation who could help me, I thought to myself as I casually scrolled through the stories. Among the people I follow I then saw Megan and Mike’s story. I followed both of them separately. Their stories were very similar to each other.

It showed them at the beach spending time together as a couple. In one picture, it showed them kissing, in another, they were holding hands having drinks, and in anothe,r they were playing in the water.

I smiled, happy for them. They were finally together after a while of not sharing their feelings.

I liked their photos and put heart emojis on them. I’m sure Keith wouldn’t have a problem with me liking pictures. I then continued to scroll as I contemplated.

I knew my brother or family wouldn’t help me either so communicating with them would be a waste of time. I bit my lower lip. There was no one I could contact.

I then shook my head, dismissing my thoughts. I had work to do; I could worry about this later. Keith and I are so close to finding the culprit now.

I put away my phone and got dressed. I then left my room and returned to Keith’s office to continue going through the documents. He was already back in his office at the seating area, going through the documents.

We worked through the night together and finished off the remaining 2 documents Keith had been suspicious of. After a few hours, we confirmed that more funds had in fact been stolen.

A total of just over 20 million dollars had been taken from the calculations we had done. Keith and I were shocked. And not to mention if this had been going on for at least five years, how much money had actually been stolen?

Certainly more than 50 million if this has been going on for that long.

To think that if Louis and I hadn’t gone to Kensington, we wouldn’t have discovered all this. I was in complete shock.

Who took that money? I wondered.

“Who do you think is behind it at the company?” I then asked Keith.

“Well, it’s someone who had access to information about the projects,” Keith explained.”Now, we’ll need to make a mental note of all the employees who worked on the financial reports or worked on these projects with the 5 financial documents we have confirmed anomalous activities.

“Okay,” I said.

“I know 5 documents aren’t a lot and might not be the most accurate way to detect the culprit. However, we don’t have enough time to continue going through the documents and match the remaining draft, nor manually look for any other anomalies in all the documents. Unfortunately, that is all we can rely on. Not to mention the two-week deadline is looming,” he said.

I nodded my head in agreement as I recalled the ransom.

“Considering one of the documents is from 5 years ago, it should be very telling if the employee remains the same across all the documents,” Keith said.

I took out our suspect list, and we began to check the company documents.

We then began to compare notes and wrote down everyone involved on the project and writing the report.

Keith and I finalized everything by the following morning. The room was filled with endless cups of coffee we had been drinking, and we were functioning on them.

I dramatically laid out the papers on the seating area table.

“It’s him?” I said in confusion as Keith and I concluded on the culprit that we thought was responsible.

“So the common denominator it seems… is Edward,” Keith said.

There was a silence in the room as the revelation sank in for both of us.

Keith’s assistant?

His was the only name that appeared each time. Among all the reports with missing funds, including the one from five years ago. Even if five documents were not enough to conclude without a shadow of a doubt that someone was a culprit, it is a bit odd that of all the five documents, including the one from five years ago, he is the only one consistently present.

As Keith’s assistant, Edward was naturally involved in checking and going through all company documents before handing them over to Keith for a final check. However, for each of these strange projects, different people were present almost every time. So by process of elimination, he was the only one who seemed suspicious.

This whole time, he had been one of our suspects, but we didn’t have any evidence that it was him. Now we did. Someone who worked so closely with Keith. No wonder the culprit knew SO much about the company and our lives.

Keith’s face darkened as he processed this.

“We’re going to the HQ now,” he said in a threatening tone. “I want to confront him now and have him explain himself.”

My body felt stiff with disbelief as I processed what this all meant.

Was it Edward who had taken Tony? I wondered. Had we finally found the culprit? My heart almost stopped beating as the thought formed in my mind.

If Keith had been stalking me for the past few months, then it makes sense why Edward would also know about what I was doing.

It would explain how the culprit showed up at the distribution centre that day and seemed to know my schedule. Another big question was did he had a connection to Diana? If this all started in Kensington 9 years ago…

Keith, I left his office and prepared to go to the HQ. I would have to find out when we confronted him at the HQ.

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DO NOT READ

I met him in the foyer after breakfast. My leg was feeling a lot better and I could move around with more ease. I met him waiting for me there.