Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Owned the Doors
Diana Bellamy arrived nineteen minutes later.
She didn't come in a chauffeur-driven limousine or surrounded by assistants.
She came in a silver Volvo with a dent near the rear bumper, parked illegally for approximately thirty seconds, and entered her own store carrying a canvas grocery bag.
At fifty-nine, Diana had built a reputation for three things: knowing wine, remembering names, and refusing to tolerate fools.
Her husband used to say the third qualification explained the first two.
She spotted Caleb immediately.
Then she noticed the guard.
Then Sloane.
Finally, her eyes settled on the broken black plastic inside a clear evidence bag on the counter.
The smile disappeared from her face.
"Somebody explain why I just abandoned a meeting with our bank."
Sloane moved first.
"Ms. Bellamy, I'm so sorry to bother you. This gentleman came in and started making ridiculous purchases with a suspicious card."
Diana looked at Caleb.
"Did you?"
"I ordered six gift boxes."
"That's the ridiculous part?"
"Apparently."
Diana closed her eyes briefly.
Sloane attempted a laugh.
"He claimed he could afford all six, but you should've seen—"
"Finish that sentence carefully," Diana interrupted.
The manager went still.
Diana turned to the guard.
"Your name?"
"Miles Knox, ma'am."
"How long have you been standing here?"
"Since she called me, about twenty minutes ago."
"And what happened?"
Miles glanced toward Sloane.
He could tell she expected loyalty.
He also knew the difference between loyalty and lying.
"She called him a fraud. I saw the card pieces on the floor when I arrived. He didn't threaten anybody while I was here."
Sloane's cheeks colored.
"He was trying to intimidate me!"
Caleb gave a humorless little laugh.
"I asked you to charge me for wine."
Diana held out her hand.
"May I see the card?"
Caleb looked at the evidence bag.
"You can see what's left of it."
She studied the two pieces.
Recognition changed her expression.
"Caleb, is this the account your company uses for travel expenses?"
"Same account."
"Good Lord."
Sloane folded her arms.
"You're not seriously telling me that thing was real."
Diana looked at her.
"Sloane, I don't care if it was a library card. You don't destroy someone's property because you dislike the person holding it."
For the first time, Sloane had no immediate response.
Diana turned toward the employees.
"I'd like the counter left alone. Nobody cleans anything, nobody throws anything away, and nobody touches the recording system until we know exactly what happened."
The redheaded woman nodded.
"Yes, ma'am."
Diana noticed her trembling fingers.
"What's your name?"
"Tessa. Tessa Quinn."
"Thank you, Tessa."
The other employee, Brielle Ortiz, stared down at the counter.
Diana approached Caleb.
"Come into my office."
He didn't move.
"Not yet."
"Caleb—"
"She said the card was fake in front of three employees and a customer."
"There wasn't another customer," Sloane snapped.
"You're right," Caleb said. "Just three employees and the man she called a fraud. That make it better?"
Diana sighed.
He wasn't shouting.
That was what worried her.
She had known Caleb since his early twenties, when he worked weekends unloading trucks at her warehouse while studying business analytics at night.
She knew what he looked like when he was furious.
Quiet was worse.
"Diana," he said, "you brought me in because the inventory numbers didn't make sense. I agreed to help, provided nobody in the stores knew what I was doing."
Sloane's head lifted.
"What?"
Diana's expression tightened.
Caleb glanced at her.
"Sorry. That was your announcement to make."
"No. I think we're past worrying about announcements."
Sloane looked between them.
"Help with what?"
Diana spoke slowly.
"Caleb runs Northline Trace. His firm specializes in investigating inventory discrepancies and supply-chain losses. He's been reviewing our records at my request."
The manager's lips parted.
Northline Trace.
She'd heard the name.
Their regional offices had discussed the company two months earlier after a shipping fraud investigation made national business news.
She had never connected its founder to her former boyfriend.
"He's... an auditor?"
"He's the independent consultant I hired," Diana replied.
Caleb shook his head.
"And a customer. Let's not lose that part."
Diana nodded.
"Fair."
Sloane's gaze dropped to his jacket.
She looked at it differently now.
That made Caleb angrier than her laughter had.
He didn't want her respect because someone important had endorsed him.
He wanted her to understand why humiliating a stranger had been wrong in the first place.
Diana asked Miles to document everyone's account separately. She placed Sloane on paid administrative leave pending an investigation.
Sloane stared at her.
"You can't be serious. Over an argument?"
"Over an employee destroying a customer's property and falsely accusing him of fraud. Yes, I'm serious."
"He's your friend. Of course you're taking his side."
"That's why an outside lawyer will review it."
Sloane looked toward Caleb.
Something flickered in her eyes.
Not remorse yet.
Fear.
Diana led Caleb into her office overlooking the rear courtyard.
The room was cluttered with shipping catalogs, framed family photographs, and a dying orchid.
He remembered that orchid from his last visit.
"You've been watering that thing with whiskey?"
"It's survived three financial crises. Show some respect."
He almost smiled.
Then Diana closed the door.
The humor disappeared.
She opened her laptop.
"I called you yesterday because Evan says we're going to breach our lending covenant."
Caleb pulled out a chair.
"By how much?"
"According to him, just over nine hundred thousand dollars in inventory value."
"That's not a rounding error."
"No."
Diana turned the screen toward him.
A spreadsheet showed warehouse stock, outstanding purchase orders, and a revolving credit facility of $4.8 million with Commonwealth Harbor Bank.
Caleb scanned the figures.
"These numbers were different on Monday."
"I know."
"Who changed them?"
Diana hesitated.
"Evan."
Evan Rusk.
Diana's chief financial officer.
A twenty-percent minority owner of Bellamy Cellars.
And the man who, eight years earlier, had accused Caleb's father of stealing from the company's warehouse.
Caleb stared at the screen.
"Why didn't you tell me he still controlled the reporting?"
"Because I was hoping to deal with the inventory problem before you had to deal with him."
"That plan's going beautifully."
Diana rubbed her forehead.
"There's something else."
She opened the store's security dashboard.
"The cameras should've recorded your entire interaction."
"They didn't?"
"The feed is missing."
Caleb leaned forward.
"How much?"
"Fourteen minutes. Beginning just before you entered."
He looked at the timestamp.
Then at the notification identifying the person who had scheduled the recording-system maintenance.
ERUSK-ADMIN.
Diana saw the change in his face.
"Caleb?"
He didn't answer immediately.
His father had spent the last six years of his working life insisting that someone inside Bellamy Cellars had manipulated warehouse records.
Nobody had believed him.
Now an administrator with the same last name was apparently interfering with another record.
Caleb closed the laptop carefully.
"Tell me something," he said.
Diana watched him.
May you like
"Did Evan know I was coming today?"
Her silence was answer enough.
