Damaged Goods

Chapter 26

Lyla was asleep on the couch when TJ got home. He had texted her to let her know he was on the way, as she had asked, but she never responded because she had fallen asleep. She woke up when she heard him setting down some of his things in the kitchen, and she got up to see him.

"Hey" she smiled at him groggily.

"Hi" he said, startled at her approach. "I thought you were asleep."

"I was, but I wanted to say hi when you got here" she responded.

"Well, I appreciate it" he said wearily, as he walked over to her. She looked adorable, with her hair messy from sleeping on the couch, wearing her sweatpants and t-shirt. He wanted to take her in his arms and kiss her, but he stopped himself, and just gave her a light peck on her forehead.

She smiled at the soft kiss and just leaned against the doorway.

"Were you able to fix whatever it was you were working on?" she asked.

"Not completely" he said grumpily, with a scowl. "I'm going to have to go back in the morning and probably spend a few more hours on it."

Lyla was definitely disappointed. She had wanted to spend the time with TJ, especially after her run-in with Darren earlier that evening, she was looking forward to spending time with TJ, just the two of them. She craved the security that she felt when she was with him. She had never initiated physical contact with TJ, but she wanted and needed it now. She walked up to him, and put her arms around is waist, and leaned her head against his chest, and let out a sigh.

"Ok," she said. "I'll be here when you get back. I think I'll stay in tomorrow."

TJ was surprised at her embrace, but pleasantly surprised. He wrapped his arms around her, and rested is chin on top of her head. He didn't say anything, and just closed his eyes, enjoying the moment, standing there with Lyla in his arms, for several minutes before either one moved.

Eventually, Lyla pulled away. "You should probably get some sleep" she said to him arms still wrapped around his waist, but leaning back to look at him as she spoke. "It's late and if you have to go back in the morning, you should go to bed."

"Yeah, you're probably right" he said, resting his arms on Lyla's shoulders as he looked into her beautiful brown eyes.

He walked her down the hall, and left her at her door, but pulled her in for a quick kiss on the lips before letting her go. She kissed him back and then went into her room and closed the door, as he walked down the rest of the hall to his own room. He really didn't want to go to bed alone. He would have loved to have had her join him and snuggle next to her as he fell asleep, but he didn't think that would be likely to happen for some time.

*****

TJ left early the next morning, before Lyla had even come out of her room. He had wanted to say good morning to her, but didn't want to wake her up. He wanted to get an early start, so he could finish up the corrections to the software and get home as soon as possible. He was hoping to salvage at least some of the weekend and get to spend some time with Lyla.

Lyla woke up, and had some coffee, not sure what she was going to do with herself all morning while TJ was gone. She didn't really want to leave the condo, after seeing Darren yesterday, she just wanted to stay in and be away from people. She sat in at the kitchen table and started to glance over the array of papers and spreadsheets that TJ had left there from a week or so ago. It looked like a lot of ledgers and purchase accounts and statements for TJ's company. She glanced at it curiously, wondering what TJ had been looking for with the forms.

She felt a little guilty, like she was spying or prying into private information, but at the same time, he hadn't exactly been secretive about it, and it was spread out on the table, and had been for days. After looking for a few minutes, and reading some of the notes that TJ had made in the margins of the pages, her curiosity took over, and she couldn't help herself. She went through the pages, sorted them, picked and poked, and then even plugged the flash drive that was sitting with the pages, into her computer, and began going through the various files.

She spent the next few hours, pouring over the information, highlighting some things here and there, and making notes as she went. She was in her element, as they were financial pages and documents, and as her background was in forensic accounting, she was starting to find what she was pretty sure that TJ had been looking for. Someone was stealing money from his company, and she was close to finding out how.

She was so absorbed in what she was doing, that she actually let out a startled cry when her phone began to ring, breaking the hours of silence.

"Hello" she answered the phone.

"Hey" said TJ, "I'm on my way home. Should be there in about fifteen minutes or so."

"Great!" said Lyla, still catching her breath after calming down from the interruption

"Are you ok?" he asked, noticing the awkwardness of her tone.

"Yeah" she said, the phone just startled me. "I was focusing on something else."

"Oh yeah? What are you up to?" TJ asked.

Lyla blushed, even though she was alone, because she was admittedly embarrassed for having gone through TJ's financial documents.

"Ummmm...." She began, "I hope you don't mind..." and she paused.

"What?" TL asked, his curiosity now peaked.

"Well, you know those pages and forms you had sitting on the table?"

"Yeah" he said, not really understanding where she was going with this.

"Well, I started looking at them, and then I got interested reading your notes. I hope you don't mind, but it got really interesting."

TJ was surprised, "Interesting?" definitely not a word he would have ever used to describe the muddle of pages that he had been investigating through for weeks. "What was interesting?"

"Well, based off your notes" she began, "I started looking for discrepancies and possible inconsistencies."

TJ was amused at hearing how she was started to get excited, just talking about it.

"I'm close" she said, "I'm pretty sure I know what's been going on and how money has been disappearing. How it all looks like it's adding up, but I'm pretty sure you've lost a pretty sizeable amount of money over the last few months" she finished, obvious excitement in her voice as she spoke.

"I knew it!" TJ exclaimed. "I knew there was something wrong. I can't believe you've found it, in just a couple of hours. I've spent weeks going over those statements and receipts."

Just then, TJ could hear a crash on the other side of the line.

"What was that? Are you ok?" he asked, his concern mounting quickly.

"Please hurry" was all he heard Lyla say, before the line went dead.