Chapter 2 - The Explanation
Grant was standing behind Thomas’s desk when Thomas entered.
He had not been invited to sit.
That was deliberate.
Thomas closed the door.
“What fell?”
Grant glanced toward the overturned wastebasket beside the desk.
“My foot caught it.”
Thomas looked at him.
Grant immediately began picking up the scattered papers.
“Leave it.”
Grant stopped.
For seventeen years, Thomas had considered Grant almost as much a son as a nephew.
Grant’s father had disappeared when he was twelve. Thomas had taught him to drive, helped pay his college tuition, and eventually brought him into Whitaker’s when Grant’s first sales job collapsed.
Family was the reason Grant had been hired.
Family was also the reason he had survived mistakes that would have ended anyone else’s employment.
Thomas suddenly wondered how many warnings he had disguised as second chances.
“Why did you pay Eli thirty dollars?”
Grant stood.
“It wasn’t wages.”
“What was it?”
“A little bonus for helping.”
Thomas’s eyes narrowed.
“He says you promised eighty.”
“He misunderstood.”
“Eli showed me the text.”
Grant went still.
For only a fraction of a second.
Then he shrugged.
“Okay. I offered eighty because we were desperate. But he spent half the shift sitting down.”
“He sits because his doctor recommends it during repetitive standing work.”
“I know.”
“He washed more than nine hundred pieces tonight.”
Grant looked irritated.
“That isn’t the point.”
“No,” Thomas said. “The point is that you agreed to pay him eighty dollars.”
Grant rubbed his forehead.
“Fine. I’ll give him fifty.”
Thomas said nothing.
“What?”
“You called him abnormal.”
Grant’s mouth tightened.
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I heard exactly what you meant.”
Grant looked toward the door.
“We’re really going to destroy a family relationship over one stupid sentence?”
Thomas felt something cold settle inside him.
“Interesting choice of words.”
Grant frowned.
“What?”
“You’re already talking about consequences.”
“Because I know you.”
“No. You know the version of me that kept protecting you.”
The office fell silent.
Grant’s confidence cracked slightly.
Thomas moved behind the desk and opened the lower drawer where managers deposited handwritten records for temporary labor payments.
The folder should have been thick.
It was nearly empty.
Thomas lifted it.
“Where are the cash-shift slips?”
Grant blinked.
“What slips?”
“The authorization slips.”
“We stopped using them.”
“When?”
“A few months ago.”
“Who approved that?”
Grant hesitated.
“I thought you did.”
Thomas stared at him.
Grant changed direction instantly.
“Maybe Claire did.”
Thomas’s daughter Claire had not been involved in restaurant operations for almost a year.
She was a corporate compliance attorney in Philadelphia and had repeatedly told him his bookkeeping procedures were too informal.
Thomas felt his stomach tighten.
“How many people have you paid cash this month?”
“I don’t know.”
“You manage the restaurant.”
“I manage hundreds of things.”
Thomas took out his phone.
Grant watched him.
“Who are you calling?”
“My daughter.”
Grant actually laughed.
“Seriously?”
Thomas looked up.
The laugh died.
“Thomas, you’re making this bigger than it is.”
“That depends on what it is.”
“It’s fifty dollars.”
Thomas shook his head.
“No. Fifty dollars is what you still owe Eli.”
He held up the nearly empty folder.
“This is something else.”
Grant stepped around the desk.
“Come on. We’ve had the worst six months in years. Food costs are up. Utilities are up. Labor—”
“Stop.”
Grant stopped.
Thomas lowered his voice.
“Do not use my restaurant’s financial problems to justify stealing from an employee.”
Grant’s eyes hardened.
“I didn’t steal.”
Thomas studied him.
Then he said, “Give me your office keys.”
“What?”
“Keys.”
“You’re suspending me?”
“I’m asking for your keys.”
Grant did not move.
Thomas extended his hand.
After several seconds, Grant pulled the ring from his pocket and dropped it into Thomas’s palm.
“You’ll regret treating me like some criminal.”
Thomas closed his fingers around the keys.
“I hope so.”
Grant blinked.
Thomas continued.
“Because if I don’t regret it, that means I was right.”
Grant left.
Thomas waited until the back door slammed.
Then he called Claire.
She answered on the fourth ring.
“Dad?”
“I need you in Cedar Falls tomorrow.”
There was a pause.
“Is Grandma okay?”
“Yes.”
“You?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire’s voice sharpened.
“What happened?”
Thomas looked at the empty labor-payment folder.
“How much do you remember about the audit you wanted me to do last year?”
“Everything.”
“I should have listened.”
Another pause.
Then Claire asked the question Thomas had been avoiding.
“Is this about Grant?”
Thomas looked through the office window toward Eli, still finishing the dish rack.
“Yes.”
“How bad?”
May you like
Thomas stared at the shelf where the twenty-dollar bill and ten-dollar bill remained untouched.
“I think,” he said, “we’re about to find out.”
