Chapter 4 - A Report With Missing Pages| At 10:18 that night, Julian stood alone in his office on the fortieth floor.
Chicago glittered beneath the windows. Traffic crawled along the streets like ribbons of red and white light. His desk was crowded with acquisition documents, legal briefs, and messages from people who seemed to believe every problem could be solved with a signature.
The Aster Room incident report sat in the center.
Julian had requested the report directly from Puit. What arrived was a single page stating that a junior employee had dropped a bottle during service and that the manager had taken appropriate corrective action.
No mention of the injury.
No mention of Dela.
No mention of the threat to charge an employee for the damage.
Julian read it twice.
Then he called his executive assistant.
“Lena, who oversees the Aster Room's employment policies?”
“Operations handles the restaurant directly. The regional hospitality director reports to Mr. Puit.”
“And who audits the restaurant's payroll?”
“Finance, once a quarter. Why?”
“I want the last twelve months of incident reports, schedule changes, employee deductions, and complaints. All of them.”
There was a brief silence.
“Is something wrong?”
“I don't know yet.”
“Should I tell operations?”
“No. Tell them I'm reviewing the building's hospitality contracts. That's true enough.”
Julian ended the call and returned to the report.
The restaurant had been profitable. Its guest ratings were excellent. Its staff turnover was slightly above average but not unusual for a high-end dining establishment.
Numbers could make almost anything look acceptable if no one asked what they concealed.
He opened his calendar and found a photograph from the previous autumn. His uncle, Samuel Rock, stood beside him at the opening of a new property. Samuel had one hand on Julian's shoulder and the other wrapped around a paper coffee cup.
The man had taught Julian how to negotiate a lease, how to recognize a lie, and how to understand that a business was only as strong as the people who kept it running.
“You can replace a chandelier,” Samuel had once told him. “You can replace a chef. You can even replace a whole management team. But if you teach your people that cruelty is profitable, don't be surprised when cruelty becomes the company culture.”
Julian had dismissed the advice as one of his uncle's sentimental speeches.
Now he wished he had listened sooner.
His phone buzzed. Lena had sent a message.
I found three payroll adjustments tied to the Aster Room. Reviewing details now.
Julian opened the attachment.
Two adjustments were ordinary corrections. The third showed a deduction from a former server's final paycheck for damaged dinnerware. The employee had disputed it. The dispute had been marked resolved without a signature.
Julian leaned back.
Another file showed a kitchen employee who had lost two shifts after reporting a faulty refrigerator. A third showed an unexplained reduction in overtime for a server who had worked through a private event.
None of the incidents proved wrongdoing by themselves.
Together, they formed a pattern.
Julian called Lena again.
“Find out whether these deductions were authorized under our contracts.”
“I'll have legal review them.”
“And Lena?”
“Yes?”
“Don't alert Puit.”
“I won't.”
After the call, Julian looked at the restaurant's guest reservation system. Dela Marsh's name appeared on several customer compliments. One guest had praised her for helping an elderly woman down the corridor after the elevator malfunctioned. Another had mentioned that she stayed late to find a child's lost stuffed rabbit.
A third note was brief.
Our server noticed my husband was struggling to read the menu and quietly brought a large-print copy without embarrassing him.
Julian read that one twice.
It was a small thing. The sort of detail a person could overlook if they were only counting revenue.
He closed the file.
For the first time in months, his grief felt less like a locked room and more like a question he might still be able to answer.
What would Samuel have done?
Julian looked at the skyline and spoke into the empty office.
“I'm going to find out.”
May you like
Then he sent one final message to Lena.
Arrange a private visit to the Aster Room tomorrow. No announcement. No special treatment. I want to see how things operate when they think nobody important is watching.
Related Stories
