Seven Empty Deposit Envelopes Showed What Was Happening At Carters Diner
Carter leaned closer, the scent of his own coffee-stained collar rising as he bent over the table. He adjusted his wedding band again, the gold cool against his skin.
“They are running the register on training mode during the afternoon lulls,” Linda said. “Or they are using supervisor overrides.”
“Can you see who authorized the changes?” Carter asked.
Linda did not answer immediately. She clicked a secondary tab, waiting for the spinning blue circle to resolve into a spreadsheet of operator codes. The silence between them grew heavy, punctuated only by the distant thud of a book drop in the hallway.
“We need to go to the lobby,” Linda said, closing the laptop halfway. “The signal is dropping back here, and I need to load the deep audit sheets.”
They walked past the check-out desk and into the wide, tiled lobby. A large clock on the wall showed a quarter to three. Linda set her laptop on a stone ledge near the tall glass windows, where the afternoon sun cut through the autumn trees.
“Here it is,” Linda said, pointing to a column of five-digit numbers. “Every single voided cash transaction from the last thirty-eight days has the same authorization code.”
