Chapter 5 - The Woman Who Refused to Believe Him
"Preston told you I was leaving?"
Eleanor sighed.
"He said you were exhausted. That you'd decided to step away from the business for health reasons."
I closed my eyes.
"He told you that yesterday?"
"Monday afternoon. He came with a gentleman named Arthur."
Of course he had.
"What exactly did they want?"
Eleanor hesitated.
"They wanted me to sign a preliminary agreement with North Creek Meals."
"Did you?"
"No."
I nearly cried with relief.
"Why not?"
"Because you built your menus around our residents. You know which people need soft foods, which ones have diabetes, and which ones won't touch broccoli unless it's covered in cheese."
I managed a weak smile.
Eleanor continued.
"And because when someone tells me a woman I've known for nine years has suddenly decided to abandon her business, I prefer to hear it from the woman herself."
I pressed a hand against my mouth.
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. Preston wasn't pleased when I refused."
"What did he do?"
"He told me I was risking our residents' meals by delaying the transition."
Anger rose in my chest.
He had used the people we served to pressure Eleanor into signing.
"I'll make sure your deliveries continue," I promised.
"I know you will."
After we hung up, I called Chloe into my office.
Eleanor had forwarded the supposed cancellation letter.
Daniel compared its signature with documents in our company archive.
Within an hour, he'd identified the source.
My signature had been copied from an equipment maintenance agreement I'd signed three years earlier.
The distinctive upward loop on the final letter matched exactly.
Even a tiny ink interruption appeared in both images.
"It doesn't prove who made the copy," Daniel explained. "But it wasn't newly signed by you."
Chloe stared at the screen.
"Preston had access to that agreement."
"So did several people," I said.
I wanted the evidence to be stronger than my anger.
We documented it and continued working.
At three thirty, another problem emerged.
A county food-safety inspector arrived to review the electrical failure that had shut down our two coolers and one oven.
Rosa had reported the interruption that morning after discovering a discrepancy in the equipment log.
I could have been upset with her.
Instead, I thanked her.
"If something's wrong with our kitchen, I want to know before anyone eats the food."
The inspector checked our temperature logs.
Thankfully, we'd moved the affected ingredients into working refrigeration and discarded everything we couldn't verify as safe.
No compromised meals had been delivered.
Still, our repair records raised questions.
The emergency alert system should have notified the kitchen supervisor when the coolers stopped maintaining temperature.
It hadn't.
"Was the alarm broken?" I asked.
The inspector pointed toward the electrical panel.
"Your technician will need to determine that. But the alarm circuit was disabled."
I stared at him.
"Disabled?"
"That's how it's currently configured."
The technician arrived an hour later.
His name was Ben Cooper, and he'd serviced our kitchen equipment for six years.
He opened the panel and examined the connections.
"I didn't leave it like this," he said.
"What do you mean?"
He showed me a maintenance tag.
The alarm had been tested successfully during his last inspection.
Someone had changed the settings afterward.
Ben wouldn't speculate about who'd done it or whether the change caused the electrical fault.
But he said it would explain why nobody received an automatic warning.
Chloe requested our building-access records.
Only four employees had permission to enter the equipment room without a supervisor.
I was one.
Preston was another.
The remaining two were our maintenance coordinator and Rosa.
Rosa had been attending her granddaughter's school concert when the suspicious access occurred.
Our maintenance coordinator had been home sick.
The electronic log showed that someone had entered the room at 5:37 that morning.
The access code belonged to Preston.
I sat down on an overturned delivery crate.
Suddenly, the equipment failure felt less like an unfortunate accident.
I remembered Preston placing the eighty-thousand-dollar lease in front of me.
We need this new production line.
The offer expires tonight.
Sign it.
Had he known our kitchen would be in trouble?
Or had he simply taken advantage of the situation?
I refused to answer those questions without proof.
Then Ben called me back to the panel.
"There's one more thing."
He held up a yellow maintenance slip he'd found tucked behind the control box.
It wasn't one of our forms.
The heading read NORTH CREEK FACILITY SERVICES.
At the bottom was a handwritten instruction.
Temporary alarm bypass authorized for equipment evaluation.
The date was from the previous week.
And beside the authorization line were two initials.
P.W.
Preston's initials.
I photographed the slip.
Then Ben turned it over.
On the back was a scheduled equipment removal date.
Friday.
May you like
Underneath, someone had written:
"Transfer usable units to North Creek after shutdown."
