Free The Aspen Account by Bryan Devore

a few weeks ago he started talking about it a little bit, telling me exactly how his job worked, how he would audit the details of various accounting activities that all rolled up into the hundred-plus pages of financial information issued to Wall Street. I thought he was just trying to tell me how important his job was—we’ve always been competitive. Then, over a week ago, he told me he might have a story for me to report on.”
    “What story?” Michael said, his eyes locked on hers with a sudden intensity.
    “How much do you know about revenue accounting?” she asked.
    “A lot.”
    “How much do you know about financial statement frauds?”
    “Sarah, stop playing games. What’s this about?”
    “Kurt found something he shouldn’t have—something illegal about X-Tronic.” She looked up at him, pleading for him to understand. “Something that got him killed.”
    He couldn’t believe his ears. She had gone nuts, locked up in her apartment researching God knew what. “What are you talking about? Nobody killed Kurt. He died skiing.”
    “He was an expert skier. He could never have died that way.”
    “Come on, Sarah. You and I both know he was a daredevil. Even expert skiers have bad accidents in the mountains. Anything can happen up there.”
    “Yeah, anything . . . even murder.”
    “Sarah, listen to yourself. Do you know how crazy that sounds? Kurt’s gone. Don’t torture yourself.”
    “He never skied in the trees.” She blinked, and the tears spilled down her cheeks.
    “What?”
    “He fell in the trees when he was ten years old—lost control and fell sideways against a tree. It broke his leg.” She seemed to be pleading for him to understand her. “He was just a little boy. It was my first time skiing on the big slopes, and he tried to impress me. I waited with him for twenty minutes while our dad went for help. A ski patroller finally came with a toboggan to take him down the mountain. It was the only time in my life I ever saw my brother cry. After that day, he never skied in the trees again.”
    Torn between Sarah’s suffering and the confusing new details surrounding Kurt’s death, Michael couldn’t speak. 
    “Something led him into the trees,” she said. “Kurt was terrified—phobic—about skiing in the trees. He wouldn’t have gone in unless he had a good reason. Are you even listening to me? Someone was with my brother when he died!”
    “All right, look. I’m sorry about what happened to Kurt, but let’s just settle down for a second and think about this. What makes you think he found something illegal at X-Tronic?”
    Sarah gestured at all the books and documents spread over the floor of her apartment. “I found these things hidden in Kurt’s house. He thought he had found something, but I’m not sure he had time to work it all out. Something about revenue, maybe. I’m not an accountant. You were his friend, and now you’re his replacement at X-Tronic. Maybe you can figure out what he was doing.”
    Michael looked at Sarah in disbelief before moving his gaze across the items on the floor. He couldn’t even process the possibility that Kurt had been murdered, but he definitely wanted to look through anything Kurt had left behind regarding suspicions about X-Tronic. He agreed to help Sarah understand the documents, and for the next three hours she walked him through all the items she had flagged that she thought Kurt seemed most concerned about. When they were finished, there was no question in Michael’s mind: Kurt had believed there was fraud in the revenue accounting at X-Tronic. But there was no proof. 
    After reviewing everything with Sarah, Michael told her it looked as though Kurt was preparing to examine the revenue contracts at X-Tronic even though this was an area that the partner, John Falcon, had insisted on examining himself. Michael wasn’t even sure where the contracts were kept at X-Tronic, but he promised Sarah he would find them