Page 185 of Ironwood Ranch Cowboys

I tap the paperwork once. “These payment structures mirror previous flagged vendors.”

“Then maybe your system has a problem.”

The wording lands precisely where he intends it to. Subtle enough to remain deniable.

I hold his gaze evenly. “My system doesn’t create reroutes requiring administrative authorization.”

“Then maybe somebody used the wrong credentials,” he says.

Possible.

Technically.

But his confidence is the problem.

He doesn’t sound concerned about unauthorized access. He sounds certain the explanation already exists.

That certainty settles heavily in my stomach. Because innocent people ask questions when systems fail.

I close the folder carefully, aligning the edges before standing. “Well, if anything occurs to you regarding vendor routing anomalies, let me know.”

Jake nods once. “Sure thing.”

Then he smiles, looking certain I can’t touch him. Which means one of two things is true:

Either Jake knows nothing, or he knows exactly how protected he is.

By noon, I’ve reviewed four years of operational transfers.

By 2:00, I’ve isolated every vendor approval tied to the flagged routing structures Annie identified.

By 4:00, I’ve stopped drinking coffee because my hands are already vibrating hard enough without chemical assistance.

The office around me disappears after a certain point.

That always happens eventually. The world narrows into patterns, data, and architecture.

Most people think accounting is numbers. It isn’t.

It’s behavior.

Systems reflect the people who built them. Every financial structure carries fingerprints whether the creator intended it or not. Habits, preferences, priorities, fear.

This system is intelligent, careful, and adaptive, which makes it personal.

I pull another query across the screen, isolating layered transfer paths between vendor accounts and deferred operating allocations.

Nothing obvious appears.

Again.

Because whoever built this understood scrutiny from the beginning.

They didn’t hide money randomly. They distributed it across operational noise. Shipment spikes. Seasonal increases. Emergency supply reallocations.

Normal fluctuations large enough to absorb fractional disappearances without triggering alarms.

Professional.