Page 50 of Tempest

Colin walked over to Ryan and slapped him on the back. “Thanks for the support. Ivy always feels like she has to help me, and she forgets that I’m a grown-ass man.”

“It’s her way,” Ryan responded. “I have a feeling that she’s not too happy with me, so I’ll have some making up to do later on.”

Colin covered his ears and shook his head. “Keep that to yourself.”

Ryan hit him in the arm and then walked over to join the ladies. “Honey, did you save a sandwich for me?”

Ivy slid a bag toward Ryan and kept her attention on Phoebe. “Are you serious?” she asked.

“Unfortunately…as a heart attack. Someone at Bellows Energy is guilty of salami slicing.”

Sitting back, Ivy crossed her arms. “How much?”

“Five million dollars. It’s taken six months to get it.”

Colin sat next to Phoebe and leaned on his elbows. “Why are we talking about lunch meat?”

Ivy looked at her brother patiently. “Salami slicingrefers to anything cut into small actions or fractions. For example, with electronic transfers, salami slicing is the action of taking tiny fractions of every transaction, which builds into a large sum. If you stole a fraction of a penny on a transaction, it could go unnoticed, and if you were to steal this small amount from thousands of transactions, it could quickly add up. Someone has been doing that at the company.”

Phoebe checked her computer. “The total amount of oil produced every day was modified by a small amount.”

Ryan finished his sandwich and wiped his mouth. “It was originally called salami tactics or piecemeal strategy, and it was used when referring to political tactics. The idea was that you could succeed by keeping your true motives hidden while maintaining a posture of cooperativeness.”

“I know a lot of people who do that every day,” Ivy responded. “Wendy Ann is one who leaps to the front of my mind.”

“I think someone is applying a salami attack on the wells. The company has had a series of small attacks or disruptions, and the result is an overall slowdown in production,” Ryan added. “Now that you’ve brought it up, I can see that the sabotage was meant to either halt production or cover up the modifications in the daily reports of oil produced.”

“Why?” Colin asked flatly.

“That’s what I’m here to find out,” Phoebe answered. “I’m pulling bank records for everyone employed by the company, and I’ve written a program to check for anomalies. I should have some answers by tomorrow. That will be the first step in finding the perpetrators. I also pulled all of your father’s communication records for the last two years, and I’m running a program to identify patterns.”

“So we sit tight and wait to see what the information reveals,” Ivy said.

“If it were me, that’s what I would do,” Phoebe said quietly.

“Okay,” Ryan said and stood up. “Should we head back to Dripping Springs? I’m supposed to take Ivy dancing tonight.”

“I have a guest house you can stay in, and I think it would be a lot more comfortable than a hotel,” Ivy said to Phoebe. “My house is small, but it’s comfy, and I promise to feed you and help you in whatever way I can.”

“That’s very nice of you. I would love to come to your house,” Phoebe said.

“I’ll stay in the guest room in case you need help with…anything,” Colin added.

Rolling her eyes, Ivy stood and gathered their sandwich wrappings. “Let’s close up the house and head out. Too bad it’s a magnet for attack. If it was at all safe, I’d say you could stay here, Phoebe. But God knows what’s going to happen next. I guess if Ryan’s friends come to town, we’ll have them bunk here. I think a bunch of SEALs are about the only people who could defend themselves.”

Ryan took the bag of trash from her hands and kissed her head. “Good thing you have one on your side.”

Leaning away from him, she smirked. “I don’t think you were on my side twenty minutes ago.”

“I was; it just didn’t seem like it.”

“Pff,” Ivy said and twirled out of his grasp. “I’m going to walk through the house before we leave.”

Ryan handed the trash bag to Colin and then followed Ivy down the hall. “I’ll come with you.”

***

Colin looked down at Phoebe and wondered if he a chance of any kind. She had barely looked at him since they arrived, and he wondered if she had a boyfriend. It might be good to find that out before he made a play. “Phoebe, do you like to dance?”

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