Chapter 59: The Bookkeeper’s Discovery
Our bookkeeper, Elaine Moss, arrived at my office carrying a folder of reconciled invoices.
She had worked at Northline for seven years and rarely brought me anything without checking it twice.
The records showed that Marcus had approved several small refunds to customers who never requested them.
The payments were routed to accounts whose details differed from the original customer records.
Elaine first suspected a bookkeeping mistake, but each transaction carried the same approval code.
She documented the discrepancies before calling our accountant.
I thanked her and forwarded the information to Miriam.
We did not immediately accuse anyone of taking the money because the records required verification.
Elaine described how the refunds had avoided a monthly review by falling just below the level requiring a second signature.
I had approved that threshold years earlier when the company was smaller.
It had seemed efficient at the time.
Now I could see how a reasonable rule could become dangerous when nobody reviewed whether it still fit the business.
We introduced independent sampling of low-value refunds and notified the affected customers where records confirmed an issue.
Elaine insisted that the new procedure include a way to flag suspicious patterns rather than only unusually large amounts.
I agreed.
She left the office without asking whether her discovery would attract attention.
Her work would never become a viral clip, but it protected people whose trust mattered just as much as the Lamborghini.
Chapter 60: The Shop Across Town
A competitor named Malcolm Reed called to ask whether the rumors about Northline were affecting our employees.
Malcolm owned a small detailing business on the other side of town.
We had competed for fleet contracts for years without becoming enemies.
He offered temporary work to any technicians whose hours had been reduced.
I told him we were trying to preserve everybody’s schedule but appreciated the offer.
He explained that Marcus had contacted several independent shops with promises of exclusive access to wealthy customers.
The pitch required owners to share client lists before signing a contract.
Malcolm refused and warned other shop owners to examine the offer carefully.
I asked whether he had preserved the correspondence.
He had, and he agreed to send it to the investigators.
Then he asked something unexpected.
“Are you still sleeping at night, Adrian?”
I laughed because the question was so direct.
He told me he had once lost a major customer after an employee mishandled a vehicle.
For months, he had worried that one mistake would erase a decade of work.
His wife eventually convinced him to stop judging the entire business by its worst week.
“You can fix procedures,” he said.
“You can’t run a company if every customer feels like a threat.”
I thanked him for saying what I needed to hear.
We remained competitors, but that conversation reminded me that business communities could offer cooperation without pretending that competition had disappeared.
