Page 16 of Ghost

She pushed a heavy stack of binders into my arms, putting enough force behind the movement to make her opinion of my contribution clear. “If you’re going to follow me around, make yourself useful.”

“Carrying things and improving morale,” I announced as I adjusted the stack against my chest. “Very demanding position. One I’m damn good at.”

Her mouth curved before she turned away, already issuing another instruction to one of the employees.

I followed with the binders against my chest and my attention fixed on the sway of her hips. Her order gave me exactly what I wanted: a place beside her while she worked, close enough to protect her.

7

TAMSIN

Somewhere along the way, we’d found a rhythm working together. Binders, field sheets, inventory lists, and transfer records covered the table. Sealed cases were lined up in a row so I could match what was physically on hand with what was on the updated records.

Black Crowns rotated through the doors and the loading area. Though impossible to ignore, they stayed out of the way while ensuring everyone in the building remained safe. Gavin never left my side for long, only stepping away a couple of times to take a phone call.

He carried whatever I pointed at. Shifted the cases I couldn’t budge. Pulled files off the high shelves. And the couple of times one of my people looked at him for direction, he just waited until they turned to me instead.

Gavin never treated my authority as a threat to his own. His confidence only made him more attractive. And so did the flex of his muscles when he hefted stuff at my request.

Setting another stack of binders beside my elbow, he murmured, “You keep finding things for me to carry.”

“Of course I do.” I smiled up at him. “My dad taught me not to waste resources, and you’re always around since you keep following me.”

“Excellent decisions on both our parts.”

I rolled my eyes and reached for the top binder so he wouldn’t see how much I liked having him at my back. Not that it did me much good since he was too darn perceptive for my own good. And with how close of an eye he kept on me, he’d already learned to read my expressions too well.

Every time I bent over a report or stretched for a shelf, I caught him watching. He never once pretended he wasn’t enjoying the view either. Which made me blush every time. Including now.

Ducking my head, I flipped the binder open and got back to work. Unfortunately, the results of today’s inventory were even worse than I’d expected. There was too much missing for last night’s theft to account for it all. Not when the Black Crowns had disrupted the break-in, and some of the items were found in parts of the warehouse with no other signs of compromise.

“I need to go further back.”

“More binders for me to carry?” Gavin asked, watching the employees moving around us.

“Unfortunately, yes.” I stood with a sigh. “And many more reports for me to review, line by line.”

He followed me to the records room and helped me bring back stacks of binders. Going backward week by week over the past six months, I started matching physical stock against the closeout packets from shows.

One report made me pause because the final usage total during the next day’s reconciliation was higher than the number on my original field sheet. I figured I had grabbed the wrong packet and checked the job number twice. They matched.

My sheet showed what left the warehouse, what we fired, and what came back. The final report claimed more material had been used or damaged than I recorded.

I found a second discrepancy. Then a third.

Each difference was small enough not to raise a red flag due to the sizable cost of the shows. But when added together across several jobs, the missing amounts were substantial.

Several of the packets in front of me had revised numbers with no real explanation. All from jobs I signed off on, and my original sheets still matched the return forms from the sites.

I started pulling every file with my name on it to confirm the pattern. The discrepancies clustered on displays I had supervised. A lot of them were from my first solo jobs. The company's records made it look like I kept losing track of small amounts of product, but I was certain my numbers were right. “Dammit.”

“What’s wrong?” Gavin asked.

“That’s what I want to know,” my dad murmured.

I’d been so focused on the reports that I hadn’t noticed him joining us.

“You should both see this.” I waved them closer and walked them through my discovery. Len joined us a few minutes in.