{{Between hard work and a bad cold, haven't been making the Inter-dimensional trips to the various Moon Lakes over the last couple of days like I want to, but hope to catch up with all my contributing responsibilities soon.—tmw.}}
As Lance Knight sat at his desk and tried to go over some of the more important e-mails and articles that needed to be reviewed as Editor-in-Chief of The Moon Lake Gazette as quickly as he could; his future fiance Lila Carpenter was out grocery shopping, thanks in part to Lance loaning her his credit card.
"I'll call the company and have them make you an authorized user. After all, you certainly will be after we're married," he said with a smile. "But if you run into any problems, just have whoever you're dealing with call me directly," added Lance, before kissing his lady goodbye, for now.
Despite being in her human form, pushing an overstuffed shopping cart of food at the local grocery store was child's play for the weretigress. Besides laying in supplies for Cindy, Jasper and Yogi's overnight stay and not knowing how often his parents would continue to stay in the guest room beyond being displaced tonight; Lila got a good week's worth for her and her man, hoping to get Lance to start eating not only a little more sensibly, but healthier as well.
There was no problems at all until she went to pay for everything.
Although it could have easily have gone to her head, Lila just smiled as the grocery store manager came to "Personally apologize for any inconvenience Mrs. Knight."
"We're still trying to get all the logistics worked out before the wedding," was all she said, accepting his apology.
Later, back at the house that she was now sharing with her lover, Lila set to work putting things away and getting ready for three rambunctious kids coming over to spend the night.
I'll get Lance to lock the office door. They'll respect the fact that the master bedroom is off limits, and we'll just have to deal with the rest as it comes, she thought, sitting down and waiting for Lance to return.
He did so about a half hour later, as a taxi cab dropped him off in front of his house.
Letting himself in, he saw Lila sitting on the living room couch, skimming over the ledger for radio station KPXX, a part of Knight Media, which Lance owned and operated.
"Hello, beautiful," Lance said, reaching out over the couch to put his arms around Lila as he nuzzled her neck.
"Hello yourself darling," replied Lila, as she set the ledger down to greet him properly.
After a passionate exchange of kisses, she said, "Off hand, do you have any idea how much office supplies a radio station should use in an average week?"
"Not really. Why?" he asked in return, sitting down next to her.
"KPXX orders at least once a week. Sometimes as often as three days out of a business week," replied Lila, as she picked up the ledger and started pointing to various entries.
"Do you think somebody's been skimming money off the supply budget?" asked Lance, looking over some of the entries for himself.
"Can't say for sure without seeing invoices or checking directly with the supply company, but I'm also curious about your promotional budget expenses. As a regular listener, I don't remember the station doing too many on air contests or remote broadcasts over the last month, but allegedly almost $5000 was spent on what was held, and that seems extensive in my personal opinion."
"I agree. So how much do you think I might have been cheated out of?"
"Depending upon the results of checking the supply orders, at least a good $10,000 just this quarter alone. There might be a pattern here. The first, and even the second supply order of any given week always occurs between Mondays and Thursdays, but the third order of any week is always on Fridays, even if they had one the day before," pointed out Lila. "The order amounts always vary, but the Friday ones are never for less than $200, and always a nice round number. No odd amounts like $83.79 or whatever."
"Wow," said Lance, looking over the ledger some more. "Guess as soon as you can finish a full audit, I'm probably going to have to contact the Sheriff and start legal proceedings against KPXX's former station manager, if not others."
"Probably, but we can discuss this better when we have more time," said Lila, as she closed the ledger. "Right now we still have some time alone before the kids get here, and I want to enjoy the peace and quiet with you," she added with a smile, before snuggling up next to Lance.
After giving her a romantic kiss, Lance started nuzzling her neck, then whispered in Lila's ear, "Do you think we might have time for..."
Then the front door bell rang.
"Guess not," Lance realized, disappointed, for you didn't need to be a were to hear the anxious voices of three children and two adults on his front porch.