Page 142 of Ironwood Ranch Cowboys

“No, it wasn’t.”

Jake’s posture remains easy. “Maybe the attachment didn’t save correctly.”

I let the silence after that answer stretch until it starts doing the work for me.

“Maybe,” I say at last, “or maybe there was never an attachment to begin with.”

He doesn’t move.

I continue before he can decide how defensive he wants to be. “You approved at least two vendor entries that don’t align with actual work performed on this ranch. They sit inside high-volume periods where they would attract less scrutiny. The names tied to those entries intersect with financial irregularities already under review. So I’m asking you, directly, to tell me why.”

Jake folds his hands once over the tablet in his lap. It’s controlled. “With respect, you’re making a lot out of routine paperwork overlap.”

“Don’t do that.”

His brow shifts. “Do what.”

“Talk to me like I haven’t read my own logs.”

“I can account for every vendor that comes and goes,” he says.

I lean forward. “Then do it.”

His jaw tightens. “You want a full review of all service traffic, I can give you that.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Yes, it is.”

“No,” I say evenly. “A full review is bulk. It’s volume. It’s something you can hide inside. I asked you about specific entries. I asked you about vendors whose presence on this property has no operational justification and no supporting record worth the paper it failed to exist on.”

His eyes sharpen. There it is. Pressure. Finally. “You think I’m stealing from you.”

I don’t blink. “I think something is wrong under my roof, in my system, and your name’s attached to too many of the access points for me to ignore it.”

“That’s not proof.”

“No,” I agree. “It isn’t.”

He waits.

Then I say, “But it’s enough for me to keep asking.”

The room goes still.

Outside the office window, I can hear a truck shifting into gear near the feed bay, one of the horses in the north paddock kicking once at the boards.

The ordinary sounds of a ranch morning carrying on as if none of this matters.

That’s the trouble with serious problems. They rarely announce themselves loudly enough to stop daily life. They just thread through it until one day the whole structure’s compromised and people act surprised.

Jake picks up the paper again, sets it down, then stands.

If I tell him to sit, he’ll know I’m angrier than I want him to see. So I stay where I am.

“I’ll pull the full vendor support chain for those entries,” he says.

“You’ll bring it to me.”