As she sat, her inbox pinged. She opened Maria’s response.
Specified stock? What the F? No idea what that is!
Dee tapped her fingers against the desktop for a few seconds before writing back to Maria.
I found a note that indicated specified stock is being delivered at night. Do you know what that could mean?
As she waited for a response, Dee looked around the office. The look and feel of the space was much improved. She thought back to that first day when she’d encountered the bland, dank workspace. She had to admit, that despite her shortcomings, she had done some good here. But she needed to continue to do everything she could to make Olsen Paper better than she’d found it.
Maria wrote back, the sound of the email landing in Dee’s inbox pulling her from her thoughts.
What does it mean? the reply read. It means something shonky is going on. You need to start busting some balls, lady.
Dee leaned back in her chair. Maria was right. She wasn’t exactly at the ball-busting point yet, but she did need to investigate. She needed to figure out what specified stock meant and who was involved.
She spent the remainder of the day tidying the office and reorganising her own filing cabinet. She carefully stored all the handwritten notes in the top drawer of her desk, then she locked the door, got into her car and drove back to Travis’s house.
She may have been able to avoid Travis during daylight hours, but she still had nights to contend with. She didn't know what Travis’s plans were, but she had to find a way to muddle through the evening and then contact Tim first thing in the morning. Given how she felt about Travis, the way her body and mind reacted to him, there was no use staying in the house.
Something powerful clapped around her heart when she considered she would no longer see Annie each morning and every evening. That little girl had been her Mason Valley angel. She’d reminded Dee what it felt like to be young and carefree. Even if Dee never found love or got to experience motherhood in her own right, what Annie had given her was a precious gift. A gift she would treasure forever.
When she arrived at the house, Dee pulled into the driveway and sat for a moment. This house had been her home for the last few weeks. Travis hadn’t necessarily made her feel welcome—at least not in the beginning—but to her, this place was as close to home as she could get in Mason Valley. She would need to move, that much was certain, but she’d miss this simple and unassuming little house. The people who lived in it, too.
Inside, Travis was preparing dinner. When he turned to look at her, his blue eyes sent a shot straight through her chest, only affirming the decision to move was the right one. She had decided not to eat dinner with Travis and Annie but planned to spend some time in her room, maybe grab some takeaway at some point. But she did want to ask Travis something first.
He must have sensed that she had a question because he raised his brows in anticipation.
‘Do you know what specified stock is?’ she asked.
Travis frowned. ‘Specified stock? You mean at work? Sometimes we make different types of paper for certain companies. But we call them special orders, not specified stock. Is that what you mean?’
She paused for a moment, wondering if she should tell Travis the full story. It was a gamble and it relied on her trust in him.
She decided that although she could not entertain her feelings for Travis, she did trust him. He was a good worker and seemed devoted to Olsen Paper.
‘I found some documentation at the office. It looks like this specified stock is being transported at night. Do you remember when Chloe and Pete were here the other night? I asked you guys about night-time deliveries?’
Travis nodded, his frown still etched firmly on his face. ‘Yeah, I remember that.’
‘Okay, well it looks like … like somebody, either from within the company or somebody close to the company, is using the factory dispatch area to transport this stock. The sad thing is that I’m thinking Vince might be involved.’
Travis chuckled and folded his arms across his chest. ‘You sound surprised.’
‘I am surprised.’
He bit his lower lip and scratched his head. She sensed he was frustrated.
‘You are?’ he scoffed.
‘Well, yes. Vince has been nothing but kind and obliging since I started work at Olsen Paper.’
Travis shook his head again and turned back towards the stove.
‘Obliging all right,’ he mumbled.
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘I mean that he was only too happy to schmooze up to you when it suited him. He is an A-grade dickhead. The guy makes my skin crawl. Sorry if he’s your boyfriend, but I just don’t like the guy. And to be honest, I thought you’d be smart enough to see through his bullshit.’
Dee ignored the bulk of his statement and focused on the keywords. ‘He’s not my boyfriend!’
Travis looked perplexed. ‘He’s not? Aren’t you dating him? You left here last night looking like a woman about to go on a date with her boyfriend.’
Dee took a breath. There were so many things she wanted to say about last night. She wanted to tell Travis that she’d realised the power he held over her. But she couldn’t mention it. She didn’t even want to recall what had happened last night. If she did, her mind would send back there—her face would grow warm, and her chest and the place between her legs would become heavy with desire. She didn’t need that right now. She needed Travis’s help with the distribution problem, and then tomorrow, she needed to find somewhere else to live.
‘Travis, Vince is not my boyfriend. But I think he’s up to no good. You don’t like him, you’ve made that clear, but I want to know… if you think he’s capable of doing something duplicitous?’
Travis looked at her and grinned that super sexy grin of his.
‘Abso-fucking-lutely.’
23
Nothing turned out the way Dee wanted it to on Monday. She had planned to speak to Vince to get his take on the specified stock issue. She would need to be careful though, she didn’t want to mention the notes she’d found, but she did want to read his face when she mentioned the words “specified stock”.
She also wanted to speak to Tim from HR, but she’d been trying to get hold of him since she arrived at the office at nine, and at two-thirty she still hadn’t heard from him. This only added to her distress. Dee needed to get out of the house as a matter of urgency. The longer she stayed, the more attached she became to Annie and the house itself. Not to mention that staying in close proximity to Travis would only cause her feelings and desires to grow. At three p.m., she called the direct line for HR once again. This time, Tim answered.
‘Olsen Corporation, human resources, Tim speaking.’
‘Hello, Tim. It’s Dee from Olsen Paper. I’ve been waiting all day for you to call me back.’
‘Yes, Dee. I’m sorry. I’ve been busy with back-to-back meetings. You know how things get.’
‘I suppose I do,’ she said. ‘Tim, the thing is, I need you find me a new place to live.’
‘Is it not working out with the single dad?’
Dee paused. How could she explain this without making Travis sound like the bad guy? The truth was, he wasn’t the bad guy. He hadn’t exactly welcomed her with open arms on day one, but since then, he had offered her his friendship and some rather interesting wound care. But if she stayed, she faced the very real possibility that she would make a total idiot of herself. If not today, then tomorrow or the next day.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, it is not working out.’ Tim didn’t need to know the details.
‘Okay, well, the thing is Dee, I have been working on this. I know it’s a priority for you, and believe me, it’s been a priority for me too. But there are simply no rental options in Mason Valley. If there were any way I could move you, I would have moved you already.’
Dee sighed. ‘Shit. Okay then. Just promise me you’ll look for something. Just keep looking. You promise?’
‘I promise, you bet. And for what it’s worth, I hear you’re doing a really good job out there.’
‘Thanks,’ she said and hung up the phone.
Tim’s praise only served to make her more uneasy about what she already knew. She would need to speak to Vince, and she’d need to do it soon. As it was, they’d been avoiding each other all day. He’d either been hanging out in his old office or on the factory floor. She needed to find a way to pin him down so the she could surreptitiously ask him some questions about the elusive night deliveries.
Her attempt to find him began on the factory floor. She donned her hard hat, vest and protective glasses before walking out the back through the swinging double doors. As always, the factory was awash with noise. Machines rumbled, forklifts beeped loudly as they reversed, and men and women shouted the occasional instruction to each other as they worked.
Dee found Vince in Kerri’s office. He sat perched upon her desk, talking to her about the weekend football match. Kerri was focused on her stock reports and didn’t look interested in what Vince had to say.
Another thought entered Dee’s mind. It might be worth checking to see if any of the documentation Kerri worked with showed any anomalies. If someone were stealing stock, it might be reflected in the paperwork.
Dee waited for Vince to finish speaking.
‘Vince,’ she said, ‘can I have a word please?’
‘Um, yeah sure. I was just talking to Kerri about some stock.’
Clearly, that wasn’t the truth. Already, Vince was giving Dee due cause to think him a liar.
‘Mind if we talk in the front office?’ she asked as they walked across the factory floor.
Out of the corner of her eye, Dee could see Travis standing at a conveyor belt eyeing her and Vince carefully and with intent. Feeling his eyes on her made each pore of her skin pucker. As a result, she walked as fast as she could back through the swinging double doors and into the office.
Dee motioned for Vince to sit.
‘Vince,’ she began, ‘I just need you to walk me through some terminology. I’m still a little sketchy about some things. Is that okay?’
‘Of course,’ he said.
He looked a little confused but showed no sign that he expected a full-blown interrogation. And, at this point, that wasn’t what Dee was intending. She only wanted to gauge his reaction.
‘Can you talk to me about special orders?’ she asked.
Vince instantly relaxed. ‘Okay, that’s easy. Special orders are orders made outside our usual product list. So, for example, a customer may order a certain size of paper that we don’t usually stock, and that would be classified as a special order.
‘Okay,’ she smiled. ‘That makes sense. What about specified stock? What’s that mean? And how is it different from a special order?’
She was careful to watch Vince’s face, wanting to track his expression, but she didn’t want him to realise she was doing it, so she glanced at her paper, then back at him. He flinched as he stumbled over his answer.
‘Not sure I know about specified stock,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Maybe you need to ask someone else about that one.’
She decided to push a little further. ‘But you’ve been here forever, haven’t you?’
He gave a short, uneasy laugh. ‘Not forever.’
‘No, obviously not forever. But for a long time, right? At least five years?’
‘Five and a half,’ he said, his expression growing steely. Clearly, he had something to hide.
Dee decided not to push further to avoid him realising that she suspected something.
‘Yeah, okay. Five and a half years is a long time, but I guess you don’t get to know everything in that time. Thanks for clearing the other stuff up for me, though.’
He looked in a hurry to get away and was already standing when he said, ‘Not a problem, anytime.’
Vince definitely had something to hide.
Now all she needed to do was figure out what he was hiding.
In the space of twelve hours, Dee had gone from desperately wanting to escape Travis’s house, to standing in his lounge room, asking him to perform a sting operation with her.
‘Do you think your mum could mind Annie tonight?’
Travis was warming the backs of his legs by the heater and didn’t give any indication that he thought the request was strange. He looked at her, shrugged and said, ‘Yeah, sure, why not.’
‘You haven’t even asked why I want your mum to babysit,’ she said.
‘I guess I figured you wanted to do something. With me.’ He winked.
She couldn’t help smiling. ‘Well, what do you figure I want to do with you?’
Travis turned and held out his hands to the heater. He shot her a sidewards glance. ‘Whatever you want.’
Dee struggled to find words. This was not the response she’d expected. She decided to push ahead with her request and leave the innuendo exactly where it was—hanging in the air.
‘Can you come to the factory with me?’
‘To the factory? I just left an hour and half ago.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I left not long after you. The thing is, I need to go back.’
‘And, you need me to come with you? I am happy to, but … why?’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘this is going to sound really strange.’
‘You want to check out what’s going on with those deliveries?’
‘That’s right. I figure that I might as well check it out firsthand. I guess I want to see for myself and was hoping to do a bit of a sting operation.’
She raised her eyebrows and winced. This was a crazy Nancy Drew kind of request. He would probably think she was an idiot.
‘Sure, let me call Mum and see what she’s up to. Do I need to put my ski mask on?’
‘You have a ski mask?’
‘I plead the fifth on that one.’
She laughed. ‘Right, then, fair enough. I do have a black tracksuit.’
Travis rolled his eyes as he plucked his phone from the coffee table. ‘This is weird, but I think you’re right. It’s probably the only way we can figure out what’s going on. And I’ll bet anything Vincy-boy has something to do with it.’
Dee gave him a grim smile. ‘You know, unfortunately, I think you might be right.’
They parked the car a few blocks away and walked to the factory from there. The air was crisp and bitingly cool. Travis and Dee were both dressed in black, head to toe. Travis looked as hot as ever, and Dee … well, Dee guessed she looked kind of cute too.
It was kinda like they were on a date. After all, they were alone and doing something fun. Well, at least Dee thought it was fun, albeit a little scary.
‘Do you think this is fun?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, I guess. In a weird kind of way, it is fun. But, I have to say, I am a little concerned. We don’t know what we’re going to find.?’
‘That’s why we have our phones. We can call the police if we need to.’ She paused before adding, ‘I honestly can’t believe Vince could be a part of this.’
‘I don’t know how involved he is,’ Travis said, ‘but I get the feeling he’s involved at some level, and I think you know that too. That is why we’re here, right?’
‘We’re here because I need to figure out what’s happening in the company I’m supposed to be running.’
‘And because it’s fun, remember?’ he said, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper.
They made their way to the side gate along the boundary of the factory, meaning they wouldn’t have to turn on any lights or unlock any doors. The side gate was always locked at the end of the night, but Travis had a key. He’d brought a can of WD-40 with him and reached up and squirted the hinges of the gate and the lock, making for a soundless entry to the property.
As they neared the dispatch area, Dee couldn’t believe she was sneaking into the building of the business she was supposed to be managing. It was ridiculous that she had
to do this. It made her angry but also more determined to figure out what was going on. And if whatever was going on was as dodgy as she suspected, she wanted to ensure she caught and dealt with the perpetrators.
Side by side, Dee and Travis fell into a rhythm. They hurried across the large concreted area beside the dispatch loading zone.
Travis motioned for Dee to follow him. He crouched behind a stack of disused pallets. From there, they would remain concealed, but gaps in the pallets allowed them a good view of the dispatch area.
They sat with their knees touching, their breath leaving their mouths in large foggy puffs.
‘I hope our breathing doesn't get us caught out,’ she whispered.
Travis smiled, and just like that, she forgot all about the sting operation, and her mind and eyes were locked firmly on him.
‘I wanted to move out today,’ she told him, her voice a soft whisper.
He adjusted his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. ‘Really?’
‘I did,’ she said quietly.
‘You said you wanted? Past tense. Do you still want to move out?’
‘Travis, I never wanted to move in in the first place.’
He nodded and squinted, despite there being no light. ‘I never wanted you to move in.’
‘But I love Annie,’ Dee said.
Travis let out a few visible breaths but said nothing.
Eventually, he whispered, ‘Annie loves you, too.’
‘The other night,’ she began, ‘just before Vince came—’
‘Shh, someone’s coming,’ Travis said.
He was right. Someone wearing heavy boots was walking across the factory floor. The sound of the person’s footsteps tapped out a beat against the concrete. The footsteps were soon joined by another pair, yet Dee and Travis did not dare look out over the stack of pallets. They stayed frozen, waiting for the people to come nearer.
One of the men spoke. ‘What have we got?’
Dee strained to make out the voice and looked at Travis.
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