3
China sat at the conference table mulling over all the papers that lay in front of her, her face contorted. “I don’t understand any of this.” She picked up a spiral booklet with the word Approved stamped in red across its cover. “This is the procedure manual that was submitted.”
“It’s also the exact procedure we put in place,” Morgan confirmed, standing with his feet apart and arms folded across his chest.
Morgan Kingsley, the ruggedly handsome and athletically built second eldest of the Kingsley boys, was vice president of field operations for their company and was quickly running out of patience with the mess they found themselves in. “There is no way in hell these procedures could have been changed without our approval or my direct knowledge and supervision,” he explained, his mouth set in a hard line.
“Dammit.” Alexander slammed his fist against the conference room table. “I didn’t sign off on any changes, and I certainly didn’t authorize any money transfers. Why would I jeopardize everything to save a few bucks?” Alexander asked the flabbergasted room.
“We know,” everyone said in unison.
“Well, according to the whistle-blower’s statement and these financial records—” Brice Kingsley, Alexander and Morgan’s younger brother and the company’s CFO, held up a ledger and a spreadsheet “—we’ve saved more than just a few bucks.”
“If that’s the case, where the hell is all the money?” Alexander asked.
“Good question. My financial records are on point and all of our audits have been clean,” Brice informed them confidently.
“Everyone just calm down,” China murmured, keeping her eyes on the pages of the procedures manual.
Alexander frowned at China. “Calm down? This is our reputation at risk...my reputation. We’re talking about claims that could turn into charges if we can’t provide evidence that not only proves whoever this whistle-blower is lied, but that everything we’ve done is legal and above reproach.”
China rose and moved over to where Alexander stood. She looked up at him, placed her right hand over his heart and said, “You pay me to worry...remember, I got this.”
Alexander’s shoulders dropped. “What do you have in mind?”
“Yeah, what do you have in mind, China?” Morgan echoed.
China turned and faced all three brothers. “We’re going to let the whistle-blower tell us where, why and how.” The corner of her mouth rose slowly.
“Wait, you know who this person is?” Brice asked, frowning.
“We all do,” she said confidently.
“What?” the brothers cried out.
China moved back to the table and gestured with her hands at all the documents that lay spread out over the conference table. “All of this information was provided by someone we know or came in contact with. What we have to do is go through every inch of this material and figure out who it could be. We’ll make a list—”
“A list?” Brice asked.
China leaned across the table and selected one of the statements that had been provided. She flipped through the pages. “Here.” She tapped the page with her index finger. “It says the whistle-blower was present doing an operations meeting in January with you, Morgan.” She looked up from the document, her eyes lasering in on his confused look. “That you were discussing the various ways to save money in the area of waste disposal. Did any such meeting occur?”
“Yes, but nothing came up about changing the way we handle gas cylinders,” Morgan assured her.
“Do you remember who all was in the room?” she inquired, dropping the document on the table.
“Everyone,” Morgan said.
“What do you mean?” China asked.
“It was our first meeting of the year.” Morgan placed his hands in his pockets. “There were over three hundred people in attendance.”
“Any senior-level management executives?” China questioned.
“Not really?” He shrugged and shook his head.
“Think, man,” Alexander ordered; his voice rose.
“I am!” Morgan responded, with an equal amount of force in his voice. He pulled his hands free and started rubbing them together as he started pacing the room. “Mom was there, along with my three lead foremen, Danny, Roger and the new guy, Big Usher.”
“Big Usher?” China asked, frowning.
“Yeah, he’s the new junior assistant. We hired him six months ago,” Morgan explained, stopping his movement.
“Just about the time the whistle-blower started providing information to the government,” China concluded.
“Usher’s a good kid...he’s not the whistle-blower. Besides, there’s nothing to blow,” Morgan reiterated.
“Who else was there?” China reached for a bottle of water.
“I can’t think of everyone. I don’t have your photographic memory, China.”
China laughed. “That’s for what I read, but you don’t need one. We can just pull the minutes from the meeting.” China picked up her phone and pulled down the recorder app, tapped it on and said, “Have the January operations notes pulled.” She sat the phone down. “This is the process we’ll have to follow with all of this information.”
“Mom’s contact really was efficient in pulling all this together,” Brice said.
Alexander raised his left eyebrow. “Are you really surprised?”
“Not at all.” Brice shook his head.
“What do we do after we get this list together?” Morgan asked.
“We go fishing,” Alexander replied. “Once we have our list of targets, we divide and conquer. Figure out who’s trying to sabotage us.”
“And?” Brice questioned, frowning. His eyes cut to Morgan, who stood with a menacing look on his face.
“Then you let me do my job,” China said, glaring at all three brothers. The last thing she needed was for them to take matters into their own hands. “In the meantime, I’ll work up our initial response to the complaint, which is basically a clear and precise denial. We have forty-five days to submit it. Hopefully we’ll figure out what’s really going on, too, sooner than later.”
“What if we don’t know what happened in forty-five days?” Morgan asked.
“We have a hundred and twenty days from the initial response to file our final one that will either substantiate our denial, as long as we provide solid evidence to back up our claim, or we can request an administrative oversight ruling.”
“An
