Chapter 6 - The Cleveland Connection
By 3:00 AM, the ICU was silent except for the rhythmic, electronic beep of the vitals monitor and the soft hiss of the oxygen line running to Natalie's nose.
She was asleep, her face finally peaceful under the warm hospital blankets, an IV line taped securely to the back of each hand. I had spent the last hour sitting beside her bed, holding her limp fingers against my cheek, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest.
Down the hall in the nursery, Miles was sleeping soundly inside a clear acrylic isolette, his cheeks pink again, nourished and warm under the radiant heat lamps.
My cell phone buzzed violently in my pocket.
I quickly pulled it out, glancing at the caller ID so I wouldn't wake Natalie.
The screen read: *Marcus Vance - VP of Operations.*
It was my manager from the corporate logistics office. The man who had sent me three hours away to Cleveland on an "urgent emergency audit."
I crept out of Natalie's ICU room, closed the door softly, and answered the phone in the dimly lit corridor.
"Marcus?" I whispered. "It's three in the morning."
"Wesley, thank God you picked up," Marcus’s voice sounded tense, breathless, and laced with panic. "Are you still in Cleveland at the distribution center?"
"No," I replied coldly. "I came home early yesterday evening. My wife was in critical condition and my son was starving to death. What's going on, Marcus?"
There was a heavy pause on the other end of the line. Paper rustled.
"Wesley... you need to listen to me very carefully," Marcus said, dropping his voice. "The internal audit team just flagged the original anonymous tip that triggered your Cleveland assignment. The one that claimed there was forty-one thousand dollars in stolen inventory at the northern hub."
"Yeah? What about it?"
"It was completely bogus," Marcus said.
A chill ran down my spine. "What are you talking about? You showed me the printed email from the regional loss prevention desk!"
"We traced the IP address of that email twenty minutes ago with corporate IT security," Marcus explained. "It didn't come from any corporate terminal or warehouse manager. It was sent from a residential internet connection in Mansfield, Ohio. Registered to an Evelyn Hartwell."
I stopped walking. The hospital hallway seemed to stretch out into infinity, the fluorescent lights buzzing with an electric hum that pierced straight into my skull.
"My mother sent that email?"
"She didn't just send the email, Wes," Marcus continued, his voice heavy with disbelief. "She spoofed the regional director's internal memo format. She used an old employee ID number from your late father’s pension file to verify the ticket. She knew our automated system flags inventory discrepancies over twenty-five thousand dollars for mandatory on-site supervisor inspection. She engineered the entire reason for you to leave town!"
"Why?" The word tore out of my throat like a shard of rusted iron. "Why would she go through that kind of trouble just to get me out of the house?"
"Because of what happened at your Columbus warehouse while you were gone," Marcus said.
My stomach plummeted. "What happened at my facility?"
"Yesterday afternoon at two o'clock, someone entered the Columbus distribution facility using your master supervisor keycard," Marcus said. "They backed a rented twenty-six-foot box truck into Bay Four. They loaded eight pallets of commercial copper wiring and high-end industrial generators—wholesale value of nearly sixty thousand dollars. The security gate logs show your supervisor credential was swiped at the exit gate."
"That's impossible!" I hissed, clutching the phone so hard the plastic groaned. "My keycard has been in my wallet the entire time—"
I stopped dead.
My mind raced back to Monday morning.
Before I left for Cleveland, I had placed my wallet and car keys on the entryway table while I carried my duffel bag to the front porch. Amber had been standing right by that table, pretending to look for her sunglasses.
She hadn't stolen my card. She had swapped it.
I reached into my pocket, pulled out my leather wallet, and flipped open the clear plastic ID sleeve.
The card inside wasn't my active blue supervisor badge. It was an old, expired visitor pass with a blank magnetic strip that looked identical at a casual glance.
"Marcus," I said, my voice shaking with pure adrenaline. "Who signed the bill of lading for the truck at Bay Four?"
"The digital signature on the dispatch manifest is logged as 'T. Briggs,'" Marcus read from his screen. "Does that name mean anything to you?"
Trevor Briggs.
My sister Amber’s on-again, off-again boyfriend. A convicted felon with two prior charges for grand larceny and receiving stolen property. A man my mother constantly defended as "a misunderstood young entrepreneur."
"Marcus," I said, my voice dead and lethal. "Call the Columbus Police Department, Property Crimes Division. Tell them I am coming into the precinct in two hours with the identities of the suspects, the vehicle descriptions, and physical evidence."
"Wes, corporate is ready to press full federal charges for interstate freight theft. If your family is involved in this—"
May you like
"They aren't my family," I interrupted, staring through the glass window of the ICU room at my wife’s fragile, sleeping form. "They are criminals. And I want them in prison."
***
