“I hear you there, but I love September anyway. It’s my birthday month, which means it has to be my favorite.”

“Yeah? You got any big plans?”

“All I know is Jamie has made me promise to take the entire day off. He won’t tell me why or where we’re going.”

A split second of awareness flashed across Simon’s expression. He knew!

“You know where he’s taking me, don’t you?”

He cleared his throat. “I think we need to talk about the inn.”

“Oh, come on. One little hint?”

“Never,” he said. He held out the sheet he’d stolen from me moments before. “Come on. I’ve got somewhere I need to be. You need to look at this.”

I snatched the paper back with a huff. “Fine.”

“There are a few more things I’d like to look over if you can help me gather them. Three more years of tax returns—I only have two years, and I’d like to go back a little further than that—and an employee history, if Ida has one.”

“What does an employee history entail?”

“How many employees does the inn currently have? How much is each employee paid? Records of hires, terminations, that sort of thing. Hopefully Thornton kept a human resources file that kept track of the details. If not, we can pull records from payroll and piece things together as best we can.”

“I can do that. This afternoon, even. I’ll see what I can find in his office.”

“That’d be great. The only other thing I need is a little more sensitive in nature. And it’s going to have to come straight from Ida.”

“Okay. What do you need?” I said.

He cleared his throat. “In putting together the whole puzzle of the inn’s financial situation, I’m finding gaps. Chunks of money that are coming from somewhere but not any of the business accounts Ida turned over in the original info I was given. My hunch is that Thornton probably had some personal accounts involved in the running of the inn—which happens sometimes in owner/operator businesses—but without access to those personal accounts, I can’t really get a clear picture of what’s happening.”

“Do you mean like a personal checking account?”

“Sure. Or personal credit cards he might have used for business expenses.”

“Oh! That reminds me. Ida brought this file by and asked that I give it to you.” I hurried over to my desk and picked up a heavy file with a large yellow rubber band wrapped around it. “I haven’t had a chance to look through it, but it might be exactly what you’re looking for. She said it looked like account statements of some sort.” I handed him the file.

He looked through the first few sheets, then nodded his head slowly, his eyebrows drawn together. “These are definitely helpful.”