Chapter 232 - The Receipts

That night, Halia opened up the briefcase, that she had so desperately tried to get her hands on, and started spreading out the receipts on her bed. There was a shocking amount of receipts.

She slowly sifted through the large number of receipts and tried to find anything that looked suspicious.

As she was doing so, her phone suddenly rang.

Halia picked it up excitedly. It was Jackson.

"How did your day go?" the man asked.

Halia smiled when she heard the man's voice.

"You wouldn't believe who my client was today," Halia replied straight away.

Jackson listened with curiosity and guessed, "Is it someone we know?" 

"Do you remember Marissa Qian? The woman that's obsessed with your brother?" Halia asked.

"Ugh, the one that looks fake from top to bottom? Was she your client? Did she recognize you?"

Halia shook her head, "No, she was completely convinced by my cover. In fact...she invited me to a hotel and..."

Halia paused.

"And what?" Jackson asked as he furrowed his brows.

"...she tried to seduce me and sleep with me..."

After Halia said this, there was a short silence on the phone.

Suddenly, out of the blue, Jackson burst into laughter.

Halia blushed a little, "Why are you laughing?"

This was the same reaction that Morton had earlier. Was it so funny to hear about someone getting seduced and almost r.a.p.ed?

"I can't believe she actually believed my beautiful fiancee is a man," Jackson replied. 

"Hey, my disguise is very convincing. You would be shocked if you saw me. Besides aren't you worried that she may have taken advantage of me?" Halia humphed.

"You have the SPU captain's skills in your brain. You could kill her with one finger if you wanted to. I trust you can protect yourself," Jackson replied. "By the way, turn on your video call and show me how you look. I want to see how convincing your disguise is," Jackson teased.

But, Halia quickly rejected the suggestion, "If you see me like this, you will never be able to unsee it. I don't want to traumatize you for life." 

Jackson laughed, "I will love you no matter how you look."

Halia blushed again. Why was this man such a sweet talker?

"If you want to see me, you'll have to come see me in person," Halia replied, refusing to turn on the video call.

Jackson smirked and changed the subject, "So how did you escape Marissa's seduction in the end?"

Halia cleared her throat and replied awkwardly, "I...I knocked her out..."

"You what?!" Jackson burst into laughter again.

"Stop laughing..." Halia frowned.

The couple continued to chat into the night about the events of their day and Jackson ended up helping Halia analyze the receipts she had gathered.

"Right off the bat, I can see some problems with the legal fees that Roy charged. He charged all the hours under the rate of a senior lawyer, but I'm sure he got his previous legal assistant to do a lot of the work because I definitely did some of the more recent work that he billed for. Besides, there's no way he would have spent 10 hours just on 'compiling doc.u.mentation'." Halia said as she pointed to a particular receipt from the law firm.

"Also, there are about 10 receipts for 'legal consultation'. All within one month before the client's death and all lasting about 4 hours. I don't know what kind of consultation he provided, but that seems really excessive. Even our will-reading meeting today was only a couple of hours long," Halia added.

"Then, there are some questionable mortgage repayments and loans that don't quite make sense. All these suspicious ones are relatively small numbers and slipped in inconspicuously amongst the large number of receipts, but when we add them all up, it's almost 8 million yuan."

"Take photos of everything and send them to Sean," Jackson instructed. "Have you spoken to him lately?"

"No. I spoke to Natalie and she told me they are getting married in a month, so I assume they are preparing everything at the moment. I don't want to disturb him unless necessary. But, I will definitely contact him about these receipts," Halia replied.

"By the way, are there any updates on when you are coming back to Beijing?" Halia asked, hoping that her fiance would return soon.

Jackson shook his head, "No. At this rate, I don't think we'll see each other until Natalie and Sean's wedding."

"What?" Halia asked in shock. "That's an entire month! I can't wait that long..."

She had already waited 2 weeks. Another month would be unbearable.

"I'm sorry, you know how it's like..." Jackson replied regretfully.

Halia sighed and said with understanding, "Yes, I understand..."

...

The next day, Halia returned the briefcase to Roy as though nothing had happened.

"How did you go?" the man winked suggestively as he held onto the briefcase. Obviously, he did not hear about Marissa going to the hospital.

"Did you even open this briefcase last night? Or did Marissa open up to you instead?" he asked with a dirty smile.

Halia cringed at this sleazy talk, but reminded herself she was a man and replied calmly, "No, we were going through the receipts in detail and she fainted."

"She fainted? You actually went over the receipts in detail? How thoroughly did you look through them? Why did she faint?" Roy asked with slight angst. 

Halia noticed the man's discomfort and knew he definitely had something to hide.

"She was shocked by the large number of receipts and she found a few of them quite questionable," Halia said, testing for the man's reaction.

"You idiot! Didn't you get my hint? That wasn't what you were supposed to do. You were supposed to please the client and make her happy, specifically in bed...if you know what I mean. How could you make her faint? That's it! You're off this case!" Roy yelled angrily as he shooed Halia out and twiddled his thumbs nervously.

As Halia walked out of the office, she heard Roy pick up the phone and call Marissa. "Mrs. Qian, I'm sorry that Mars upset you last night and made you faint. He's new and doesn't understand a lot of things and he may have made some of the receipts sound confusing. But, I can assure you that they are all correct and normal. There's nothing to be concerned about." 

"That's alright," Marissa replied on the other end. "I already spoke to Morton. Just go ahead with everything. I don't want to deal with this anymore. I trust you."

Roy smirked. The little legal assistant almost ruined everything! Fortunately, Marissa didn't notice a thing.

"But, I have one request," Marissa suddenly said.

Roy listened with curiosity.

"I want you to send Mars to me one more time. I have an event to attend this evening and I need a partner. I'm giving him a chance to make up for what he did last night. Let him know that if he doesn't come, the consequences will be dire," Marissa threatened.

Roy listened to the request questioningly. Didn't Marissa faint after looking at the receipts? Why did it sound like the legal assistant had done something more serious than that?

Regardless of what actually happened, it wasn't his problem. So, Roy agreed and went to speak to Halia again.