Page 104 of Not Quite Dead Yet

‘No Angie.’

Back to the files, Jet opened the payroll from September. Scanned again. No Angie, no Henry. August. The same: no Angie or Henry. July, June. Nope. May, April. Nothing. All the way back to March, then February. Back when Jet was still with JJ, when she knew Henry was working for Mason Construction. But the spreadsheet called her a liar, because his name still wasn’t here. And neither was Angie’s.

Something cold danced up her spine, spider-leg fast, setting off the pain in her head.

She grunted, pressed her palm to her eye, to the invisible knife behind it.

Why were their names missing? Was it just an error – Luke forgot to type them into the spreadsheet?

Jet clicked the back arrow on the files, again and again. Came out ofPayrolland into a folder namedTax Filings, thenPayroll Taxes, thenFICA.

She clicked on a file, opening a 941 form for October’s tax return.

She studied it, made her head hurt more. Thought this was supposed to be fun.

It matched. The numbers matched those on the spreadsheet.

And for September, August, July.

So, if it was an error, then Luke had made the same one here. And people like Luke didn’t make errors on something as important as federal taxes.

Jet clicked out of taxes into a folder calledInsurance, thenWorkers’ Compensation Insurance.Clicked the document for the most recent filing, the premiums Mason Construction was paying to the insurer. The records matched; it detailed the same number of employees as listed in the payroll, the number that didn’t include Henry or Angie.

‘Did you call me?’ Billy’s voice sailed through the dark office, making Jet jump, the arrow careering off the screen.

‘No,’ she said, watching as he came around the corner, a small pile of papers clutched in his hand.

‘Oh.’ Billy flexed his lip, lighting Jet up with his phone. ‘Thought I heard something. You found anything?’ He gestured to the screen.

‘Maybe,’ Jet said. ‘Did you find anything?’

‘Maybe.’

‘You go first.’ Jet spun in her chair to face him.

‘OK, so I was looking through the files at random.’ Billy leaned against Luke’s desk. ‘Really boring, by the way. And then I found a folder for a project labeled19 Pleasant Street.’

‘19 Pleasant Street,’ Jet repeated. ‘That’s Gerry Clay’s house.’

‘That’s what I thought.’ Billy saluted her with his papers. ‘Most of it looks fine. They were doing a front extension about twelve months ago, remodeling the front of the house and fitting a new kitchen, right?’

‘Right.’

‘And then, for the kitchen stuff, I found this invoice here, a client invoice, so this one was for Gerry, from Mason Construction.’ He held up one of the sheets of paper.

Jet pretended to scan the page, but her eyes tripped up over themselves, not just doubled, doubled on top of doubled, a tangled mess of black lines. Didn’t help that Billy couldn’t hold it still.

‘So here’ – he pointed – ‘they charged Gerry twelve thousand dollars forWhite Calacatta Marble, for the countertops. Sixty square feet. For materials alone, right?’

‘Right.’

‘But.’ Billy held on to the word, switching to the sheet of paper below. ‘This here is an order confirmation form, from a place called Imperial Marble. And the order was for sixty square feet, right, but it was forStandard Italian White Marble.And it cost seven thousand dollars.’

Jet swallowed, felt it slide all the way to her gut.

‘That’s … different,’ she said.

‘Five thousand bucks different,’ Billy added, holding up the two pages side by side.