Chapter 6 - The Missing Names
Claire’s spreadsheet reached forty-three questionable entries by Tuesday evening.
Emergency dishwasher.
Emergency porter.
Emergency maintenance.
Temporary prep.
After-hours cleaning.
The amounts were small enough individually to look unremarkable.
Eighty dollars.
One hundred twenty.
Two hundred.
Three hundred fifty.
But the names were either missing, incomplete, or attached to employees who denied receiving the amounts shown.
Claire called three former workers.
The first did not answer.
The second, Rosa Alvarez, answered from North Carolina, where she had moved after her husband found construction work.
Claire explained why she was calling.
Rosa went silent.
Then she said, “Grant told me not to complain.”
“About what?”
“My hours.”
“How many?”
“Usually two or three a week.”
“For how long?”
“Maybe five months.”
“Were you paid for them?”
“Sometimes cash.”
“Correct amounts?”
Rosa laughed bitterly.
“No.”
Claire looked at Thomas.
He was listening on speakerphone.
“Why didn’t you report it?”
Rosa hesitated.
“I needed the job.”
That sentence hurt Thomas more than he expected.
Claire asked, “Did Grant ever say why the amounts were different?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That taxes and meal costs came out.”
Thomas shut his eyes.
Whitaker’s provided shift meals free.
Cash supplements were supposed to be properly reported through payroll afterward.
Grant had apparently invented deductions.
Claire thanked Rosa and asked permission to contact her again.
When the call ended, Thomas stood and walked to the window.
“How many?”
Claire looked at the spreadsheet.
“So far? I can document at least $7,840 in unexplained cash disbursements.”
Thomas turned.
“That doesn’t mean he pocketed it.”
“No.”
“But?”
“But it means money left the restaurant accounts without reliable proof of where it went.”
She opened another worksheet.
“And there’s a second problem.”
Thomas returned.
“Vendor expenses.”
Claire highlighted six payments.
Baird Facilities LLC.
“What is that?”
“Apparently our favorite maintenance company.”
Thomas frowned.
“I’ve never heard of them.”
“You approved sixty-two thousand dollars to them in nine months.”
Thomas went rigid.
“No, I didn’t.”
Claire turned the laptop.
There were digital approval records.
Approved: T. Whitaker.
Thomas stared.
“I never saw these.”
“Do you share your accounting password?”
“No.”
“Has Grant ever used your computer?”
“Of course.”
Claire leaned back.
“That’s not the answer I wanted.”
Thomas rubbed his face.
“What did Baird do?”
“According to invoices? Refrigeration repairs, grease-line work, plumbing, roof work, HVAC.”
“We use Mercer Mechanical for HVAC.”
“I know.”
“And Tully Roofing.”
“I know.”
Thomas pointed at the screen.
“Then these are fake.”
“Maybe.”
“Claire.”
“I’m not calling them fake until we verify the company.”
She searched the state corporate database.
Baird Facilities LLC had been registered nineteen months earlier.
The mailing address belonged to a private mailbox center forty miles away.
Registered organizer: Caleb Baird.
Thomas frowned.
“Name mean anything?”
“No.”
Claire searched social media.
A photograph appeared.
A man in his early forties standing beside Grant at a golf tournament.
Thomas leaned closer.
“I know him.”
“Who?”
“Grant’s college roommate.”
Claire looked at her father.
Neither spoke for several seconds.
Then Thomas whispered, “Oh, God.”
Claire kept searching.
Caleb’s profile showed no maintenance business.
His employment history listed commercial real estate.
Including one company that caught Claire’s attention.
Hartwell Development Group.
She clicked.
Hartwell specialized in acquiring aging independent commercial properties and converting them into mixed-use retail developments.
Whitaker’s occupied a corner lot near Cedar Falls’ rapidly redeveloping riverfront.
Claire felt a knot form in her stomach.
“Dad.”
Thomas read the screen.
His expression changed.
Six months earlier, Hartwell Development had offered to buy the restaurant property.
Thomas had refused.
His sister Evelyn had wanted him to reconsider.
Grant had insisted the restaurant was bleeding money.
And now Grant’s former roommate appeared to be receiving tens of thousands of dollars through a company Thomas had never heard of.
Thomas stared at Claire.
“You think the losses were manufactured.”
“I think we need more evidence.”
“But you think it.”
Claire closed the laptop.
“Yes.”
Thomas sat down heavily.
For months Grant had shown him reports proving Whitaker’s margins were collapsing.
Thomas had cut renovations.
Delayed raises.
Used personal savings to cover equipment.
Wondered whether his father’s restaurant would survive another year.
Claire looked again at the payments.
“Dad.”
“What?”
“If these invoices are fraudulent, Grant wasn’t just stealing.”
May you like
She pointed toward Hartwell’s website.
“He may have been trying to change what you believed the restaurant was worth.”
