“Ahm, Alex. I was wondering, would you like to go to dinner with me?”

Oh, no.

“I mean, I’d love to hear more about the Sullivan case and what happened in San Diego. It’ll be my treat.”

I could be reading him wrong. I could be, but I might not be. You have to evaluate behaviors in cluster patterns. Dad’s voice speaks loudly in my head. Cluster or not…

“Timothy, I’m your boss. We could both get in a lot of trouble.”

His cheeks redden, and he shoves his hands in his pockets. Much the way the earlier grad student did. It’s the universal sign for not wanting to talk.

“I didn’t mean like as a date.”

“Of course.” I give him a tight-lipped smile. Submissive, non-aggressive. And with that expression, it’s clear I’m not going to pursue this line of conversation. “I can’t go out tonight, but I’d be happy to go to lunch tomorrow. Actually, did you take accounting?”

“Freshman year.”

“Any chance you’d understand these financial statements?”

He laughs. Full-on laughs. His laughter clears the air of any tension.

“I am not an accountant.”

“Yeah, I’m not much on it either. We did have a forensic accountant review everything. If he couldn’t find it…” I trail off, thinking that I have no chance. The forensic accounting world requires a level of expertise I do not possess.

“I won’t figure it out,” Tim says, saying exactly what I was thinking about myself.

“It is interesting, though,” I tell him. “You know, I had always thought that gun and weapons manufacturers had their best years when a Democrat is in office.”

“Because there’s fear they’ll lose the right to own guns?” Timothy asks.

“Yeah. I mean, from what I can tell, completely unfounded fear. But I’ve read a number of reviews over the last several decades, and it was a consistent trend. Gun sales slumped when Republicans were in office. But they did well the last year under Trump. I suppose the pandemic helped.”

“I’ve read about that. Fear drives gun sales.”

I drop the file folder with all of the financial information onto my desk with a thud. The company is profitable, but I’m not going to decipher more than that from a financial statement.

“Are these people on your board suspects?”

“Persons of interest.” I point to Larry. “He was definitely involved. But he didn’t do it alone.”

“Is the FBI tracing the reward?”

“Trying.” I shrug. “Jack played it straight up. True to his word. Paid into an account as directed.”

“Is that who you are trying to find?” He backs up against the wall, arms crossed. His foot still angles in my direction.

“Not necessarily. I suspect the recipient is a low-level person. He, or she, is probably in hiding because he double-crossed his team. And he teamed up with dangerous criminals. What I want to know is who recruited Larry Reyes.” I am careful not to mention any specifics regarding Reyes, because to my knowledge, specifics on the case haven’t yet been released.