Page 70 of Passion in Bloom

Chapter 24

Roarke

Uh-oh.

Heather looked concerned, furrowing her brow as she took this call from her boss on speaker. She didn’t show the screen so I would be in the background, and I wasn’t going to make myself be known on the call anyway.

Staying quiet, I set the plates on the table. I ensured the ceramics didn’t make a sound. She didn’t look over at me, too enraptured with Janelle’s call.

I’d met the bank manager once, but I wasn’t sure if she’d remember me much, at least not any better compared to anyone else in town.

If there was another room, I’d excuse myself and wait for this call to be done. If this was something related to work, confidentiality would matter. I didn’t want to intrude. But the bathroom was the only other option.

“Compromised?” Heather asked. “How? What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure. The official who called me was concerned and talking too fast. They were worked up, all emotional and not slowing down with facts, but it sounds like the data that you had stored on the documents either was missing or doctored.”

She shook her head as she slumped to the chair she’d just fucked on me. She was focused and entirely concentrated on this call now. No distractions about the memory of what we’d just done.

“That’s...” She lowered her gaze and frowned. “That’s not possible though. Could they have screwed it up?”

“No,” Janelle replied. “I don’t think so. That was my worry, too. That maybe they opened up the attachment and something in their spreadsheet software had a default setting that automatically changed up something on our settings. But that’s not it. I opened a copy of what I forwarded, and it’s all out of whack.” She cleared her throat. “I’m not hovering. I don’t like to micromanage, but I did look at the doc and spreadsheets within the first week of you taking over the project. And everything looked fine then. The numbers and labels you had stored and categorized then are not the same as what’s in the current file that I forwarded.”

Heather tucked her hair behind her ear, frowning deeper now. “I don’t see how this could’ve happened.”

“Me neither. Something is going on, and I just wanted to give you a heads up that we’ll need to troubleshoot it first thing.”

“I wish I brought my laptop home again. I could look right now.”

“No,” Janelle replied. “No, no worries like that. We don’t need to go to the bank at this hour of the night or anything. I was hoping you’d be able to say it was acting glitchy or something and I could know it was something beyond our control.”

“I haven’t noticed anything like a glitch. The last time I put new numbers in, a couple of days ago before Fergus went with me on the collections for that project, everything looked and acted normal.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of it.” Janelle’s heavy sigh suggested she wasn’t confident about that claim though.”

They disconnected the call. For a long moment, Heather zoned out, staring at the table. Her focus never settled on the plates of food that I put down, and I wasn’t stupid enough to suggest that she distract herself from this news about a work problem to eat.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

I hoped it didn’t sound intrusive. It wasn’t my business and it was likely something that she had no permission to talk to me about, but I had no idea how else to say something, to ask anything. Maybe that wording was trivial and she wouldn’t get defensive. However I could word it, I wanted her to know that I was here to help in any way that I could. As a sounding board, to offer advice, or whatever else she might need or want.

“I don’t know.” She slowly shook her head, still zoned out and stuck in a vacant stare at nothing. “I... She put me in charge of the county’s toy drive and charity donation drive.”

I nodded. “I remember that.” It seemed like Burton participated in it every season. “Last year Nance and Fergus walked around doing it, right?”

“Yeah.” She nodded feebly. “They did. Janelle asked me to take over the project for this year. It’s nothing. Just collecting the toys dropped off and taking them to the bank. Finding all the cash and receipts put in the businesses’ boxes. Simple stuff.”

She wasn’t telling me anything that I didn’t already know.

“But Janelle says the docs are compromised.” She frowned, looking up. “You’re sitting right here. You heard.”

“Would you like me to go?” I asked.

“No.” She winced and looked away. “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s raining now, anyway. That’s not necessary.”

“What can you do?” I asked.

She frowned. “Do you think it’s my fault?”