“Margaret wanted this buried.”
David looked at her.
“But if I stay quiet now, I’m helping them destroy her.”
They spent two hours sorting.
Lena pulled register reports.
Old tickets.
Adjustment logs.
The diner’s previous accounting records.
A picture slowly formed.
Mason had found real missing revenue.
But he had assumed missing revenue meant theft.
Nobody had separated fraud from generosity.
More importantly, Mason had never calculated the scale correctly.
The total over years sounded large until divided across time.
Over the previous twelve months, the meals Margaret had comped totaled $3,870 at menu price.
Food cost was significantly lower.
Less than one percent of the diner’s annual sales.
The diner’s financial trouble was real.
Margaret’s meals were not causing it.
Supplier inflation alone had cost more than six times that amount.
Credit card fees had risen.
Waste was poorly tracked.
Overtime scheduling had increased.
A new delivery contract was costing thousands more than Mason realized.
Mason had taken the smallest understandable number and given it the largest emotional meaning.
At 7:15, he arrived.
David and Lena were waiting in a booth.
Mason saw the folder.
“What’s this?”
David did not offer him a seat.
“The answer you wanted.”
Mason looked at Lena.
“You went through the records?”
“Yes.”
“You had no authorization.”
Lena’s eyes flashed.
“Fire me too if you want.”
David pushed the folder across the table.
“You found numbers you never bothered to understand.”
Mason did not touch it.
“The money is gone, David.”
“She hid it from me.”
“And you humiliated her before asking why.”
David leaned forward.
“That’s not leadership.”
“That’s cowardice.”
Mason’s face hardened.
“Careful.”
“You still don’t know what she did.”
David opened the folder.
“These aren’t stolen dollars.”
He spread several tickets across the table.
“They’re meals Margaret comped.”
Mason looked down.
“Comped for who?”
“People who couldn’t afford to be seen asking for help.”
Lena spoke.
“And don’t ask me for every name.”
Mason stared at the tickets.
“These go back years.”
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
Lena nodded.
“Some.”
“How long?”
“Since before you fully took over.”
Mason looked at her in disbelief.
“And nobody thought to tell me?”
A voice came from behind him.
“Because she gave us meals, Mason.”
David turned.
Harold Lewis stood near the entrance.
He had arrived quietly.
“She never made us give up our dignity.”
Mason stood.
“Harold.”
Harold removed his cap.
“Some of those tickets are mine.”
Mason stared.
Harold shrugged.
“My pension got messed up three winters ago.”
“I had eighteen dollars to last almost two weeks.”
“Margaret fed me breakfast.”
“I paid her back later.”
Lena shook her head.
“She never put the repayment through.”
Harold smiled faintly.
“She told me I already paid by coming back.”
Another voice.