Chapter 5 - THE INVOICE
The invoice showed $184,700 in spoiled produce, emergency handling fees, and temporary equipment rental.
I had never seen it before.
Neither had the warehouse supervisor, Marcus Reed.
"Your manager signed the loss confirmation," Marcus told me.
"Curtis never visited the site."
"Then how could he know what was damaged?"
"He couldn't."
I asked Marcus to preserve the temperature logs and every camera recording from the service bay.
He agreed, but he sounded nervous.
"Somebody from your corporate office already called and said we were not authorized to discuss this with you."
I felt my chest tighten.
"Then don't discuss it further. Just keep your own records."
After we hung up, I called Daniel.
He answered on the second ring.
"What's wrong?"
I told him about the invoice.
He did not sound surprised.
That frightened me more than if he'd shouted.
"This is exactly the pattern Nora's team found," he said.
"What pattern?"
"Inflated emergency response claims, duplicate vendor payments, and fictional equipment rentals."
"How much?"
"We don't know yet."
"Am I going to be blamed?"
"Someone may try."
I sat down at my kitchen table.
There was a framed photograph of my father beside the salt shaker.
He'd spent thirty years maintaining heating equipment for the county before he died.
He always said that when a machine failed, you started with the facts, not the person most convenient to blame.
"I have the original service notes," I told Daniel.
"Good. Keep them somewhere safe."
"What about Tasha?"
"Who's Tasha?"
"Dispatch. She knows the records were changed."
"Then we need to make sure she's safe too."
That evening, Tasha finally called from a blocked number.
Her voice was shaking.
"Curtis knows I printed the logs."
"Did he threaten you?"
"He told me that people who create problems sometimes lose more than their jobs."
"Come to my house."
"I can't. Someone has been sitting outside my apartment."
My stomach dropped.
"Call the police."
"I did. The car drove away before they arrived."
She started crying, then pulled herself together.
"I found something worse, Caleb."
"What?"
"That storm call wasn't the first time Curtis changed a response record."
"How many?"
"Twenty-three that I can prove."
"Send copies to a lawyer."
"I tried."
A door slammed in the background.
Tasha gasped.
"Someone's here."
The connection went dead.
Ten seconds later a text appeared on my screen.
It was a photograph of her apartment hallway.
May you like
At the far end stood Curtis Baines.
