Chapter 3 - The Warehouse on West Broad Street
"Taking over my business?"
Tyler nodded, but he looked frightened.
I lowered my voice.
"Tell me exactly what your father said."
"He didn't explain much. He said North Creek was going to be the future of meal delivery, and that you'd understand eventually."
"Where did he take you?"
"An old warehouse off West Broad Street."
I knew the area.
Several small food distributors operated there, along with storage facilities and refrigerated trucking companies.
"Was Arthur there?"
Tyler looked surprised.
"Yeah. Uncle Arthur was unloading boxes."
I closed my eyes.
Arthur had been part of our lives since before Tyler was born.
He'd attended our wedding.
He'd held Tyler at his first birthday party.
And when we opened The Shared Table, he'd helped Preston find our first delivery van.
Now his company had received nearly forty thousand dollars in questionable payments.
"What kind of boxes?" I asked.
"Food containers. Labels. Some had our company name."
I felt cold.
"Why would our containers be at another company's warehouse?"
"I asked Dad that."
"What did he say?"
Tyler hesitated.
"He said you were holding the company back."
I looked away.
I didn't want my son to see how deeply those words wounded me.
For seventeen years, I'd worked twelve-hour days so Preston could call our business a success.
I'd missed birthday parties, school concerts, and family vacations.
I'd burned my hands on ovens and spent nights worrying about whether we could make payroll.
And apparently, somewhere along the way, my husband had decided I was the obstacle.
"Mom?"
I turned back.
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you."
"You don't owe me an apology."
"But I knew you were arguing about money."
"Tyler, you're sixteen. None of this was yours to solve."
He nodded slowly.
Then he opened his math notebook.
A folded piece of paper was tucked between two pages.
"Dad dropped this in the truck. I picked it up because I thought it was one of his delivery sheets."
He handed it to me.
It was a printed route schedule.
Across the top were the words NORTH CREEK MEALS.
Beneath them were six customer names.
I recognized four immediately.
Three local offices and the adult day center.
All existing customers of The Shared Table.
One route had a handwritten note.
Transition after Friday.
I stared at it.
Our adult day center contract didn't expire for another eleven months.
We had never discussed ending it.
And certainly not replacing ourselves with another supplier.
I photographed the sheet and sent it to Chloe.
Her reply arrived moments later.
Don't confront Arthur or Preston. Bring the original tomorrow.
The police came to take our statements. They photographed the broken plate, listened to what Tyler had witnessed, and explained the available safety and protective-order options.
I told them I wanted the incident documented.
Preston had never thrown something that close to me before.
But as I spoke, I remembered smaller moments.
A fist slammed against the dining table.
A door kicked shut.
A coffee mug broken during an argument about payroll.
Each time, I'd explained it away.
Stress.
Exhaustion.
Financial pressure.
Now those memories felt different.
That night, Tyler and I stayed in a hotel.
He fell asleep with the television playing quietly.
I sat beside the window, looking at an old photograph on my phone.
It showed Preston and me standing outside our first rented kitchen.
Our clothes were stained with flour.
I was holding the battered blue enamel soup pot we'd bought at a yard sale for six dollars.
Preston had his arm around me.
We looked exhausted.
And happy.
I remembered him saying, "One day we're going to feed half this city."
I had believed we meant together.
The next morning, Chloe was waiting at our office.
Our independent auditor, Daniel Mercer, sat beside her.
I handed them Tyler's route sheet.
Daniel examined it carefully.
"Where did this come from?"
I explained.
He compared the customer names with our active contracts.
Then Chloe opened a report on her computer.
"We found something overnight," she said.
A list of electronic approvals appeared.
Several suspicious supplier invoices had been authorized through our internal purchasing system.
Daniel pointed at the approval column.
"Look at the account used."
I leaned forward.
Every questionable transaction showed the same name.
Mine.
"That's impossible," I said.
Daniel clicked on the transaction history.
"The approvals were made after midnight."
I looked at the dates.
On one of those nights, I'd been asleep at home.
On another, I'd been helping Tyler prepare for a school presentation.
And on a third, I'd been in the emergency room with one of our employees after she'd injured her wrist.
I knew I hadn't approved those invoices.
Then Chloe opened the access details.
The transactions had come from a device connected to our home internet.
Not the office.
Not Arthur's warehouse.
Our house.
Daniel looked at me.
"Someone has been using your credentials."
I stared at the screen.
Then I noticed the final transaction.
It was dated the previous evening.
May you like
Twenty-two minutes before Preston threw the plate.
An approval request for eighty thousand dollars had been submitted under my name.
