Chapter 3 - Eric Had Been Using Daniel’s Workstation
Eric Reed arrived at Daniel’s apartment that evening without calling.
He wore the Vantage quarter-zip jacket corporate managers received every year.
Daniel hated it immediately.
“You used my login.”
Eric shut the door behind him.
“Not like you think.”
“That is becoming my least favorite sentence.”
Lily began fussing in the portable crib.
Eric lowered his voice.
“During Rachel’s hospital stay, returns were stacking up.”
“So?”
“You were route coordinator. Your approvals were sitting open.”
“My approvals?”
“Operational returns assigned to your station.”
Daniel stared at him.
“How did you know my password?”
Eric hesitated.
Daniel understood.
“Mom.”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Eric rubbed his forehead.
“IT kept your profile active.”
“That doesn’t give you the password.”
Eric finally answered.
“You had it written inside the desk drawer.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
He had.
Years earlier.
A stupid habit from a system Vantage had since replaced.
Daniel believed he had removed the note.
Apparently not.
“You knew that wasn’t permission.”
“I thought I was clearing legitimate store claims.”
“Under my name.”
“Because your queue was responsible for them.”
“While my wife was dying.”
Eric flinched.
“I was trying to keep work away from you.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“By doing work as me?”
“I should’ve had IT transfer the queue.”
“Yes.”
Eric sat down.
“But Curtis’s stores were already threatening escalation.”
There it was.
Curtis Hale managed one Redstone location, but Eric oversaw the Vantage account for seven Redstone stores in the Columbus region.
For more than a year, Redstone had complained about:
damaged cases,
temperature deviations,
late deliveries,
incorrect lot allocations,
and short shipments.
Vantage’s new automated warehouse system was performing badly.
Eric approved generous vendor credits to keep the account.
“How generous?”
Daniel asked.
Eric looked away.
“Too generous.”
Daniel thought about the formula lot Evelyn had identified.
“Curtis claimed an entire lot was destroyed.”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Apparently.”
“Did you verify it?”
Eric did not answer quickly enough.
Daniel felt something inside him sink.
“You didn’t.”
“Redstone was one complaint away from terminating us.”
“So you approved anything.”
“Not anything.”
“Under my name.”
“Some of them.”
Daniel stood.
“Get out.”
Eric stared at him.
“Dan.”
“Get out.”
“If Redstone cancels, Vantage loses nearly twenty percent of revenue.”
“Then maybe you should have fixed the warehouse.”
Eric’s face hardened.
“That’s easy to say from route coordination.”
“And apparently easy to approve from my computer.”
Eric left.
The next morning, Daniel’s suspension remained.
His paycheck would continue for ten business days while the investigation proceeded.
After that, nobody promised anything.
Evelyn Cross called him.
“I need to ask about lot 7C41.”
Daniel hesitated.
“My lawyer should probably be on this call.”
Evelyn sounded almost approving.
“Yes.”
They spoke later with Laura Stein present.
Redstone’s records showed Curtis’s store received credit for destroying forty-eight containers from lot 7C41 after claiming seal damage.
Inventory records showed twenty-nine were later sold.
The store received the Vantage credit and the customer revenue.
“Curtis pocketed it?”
Daniel asked.
Evelyn shook her head.
“No evidence of that.”
The credit improved the store’s shrink numbers.
Store managers earned annual bonuses partly based on shrink performance.
Curtis had a financial motive.
But the money itself remained in Redstone.
Daniel asked:
“Why would Vantage keep approving it?”
Evelyn looked toward Laura.
“That is your employer’s question.”
Then she added:
“But Curtis was confident somebody would.”
That afternoon Vantage reviewed one year of claims.
Suspicious credits did not occur only at Curtis’s store.
They appeared at all seven Redstone locations managed through Eric’s account.
Total:
$612,000.
Nearly half had been approved through Daniel’s operational profile.
May you like
Daniel had stopped being one employee with a compromised password.
His name was now embedded in the largest customer-account problem Vantage had ever faced.
