Avalanche (A Stone Mountain Mystery Book 3) Read Free

She stood with her hands on her hips and glared at Helen. “I thought Eric was on shift today.”
    Jessica carried herself like a runway model. All angles. No curves to soften her look. Her blonde hair fell straight, ending halfway between her shoulder blades. Not one kink in sight. Precisely laid blush accentuated her sculpted cheekbones. Although Jessica was physically beautiful, Kalin thought Helen’s personality made her the more attractive of the two.
    From her place on the carpet, Helen answered her boss without looking at her. “He asked me to sub for him.”
    Jessica leaned forward. “Why are you sitting on the floor?”
    Red crept up Helen’s neck to her face and turned her cheeks a blotchy crimson.
    “Helen?” Jessica asked.
    Helen swung her hand in front of the empty safe. “The money’s gone.”
    “What do you mean gone ?” Jessica strode to the safe, grabbed the door and swung it wider. “And what’s Kalin doing here?”
    Poor Helen . Kalin watched her carefully. Helen didn’t look her boss in the eye. Instead she stared at the wet footprints left by Jessica’s winter hiking boots on the threadbare carpet. Even wearing jeans, Jessica looked elegant.
    Helen had been a senior clerk for five months, and with her lack of education, she’d been lucky to get the job. Kalin had risked hiring her because she thought her honest and detail oriented. And even though it shouldn’t influence a hiring decision, she liked Helen.
    “It’s not my fault,” Helen said.
    Jessica took a deep breath. “I didn’t say it was. What happened?”
    “I don’t know. I opened the safe and found it empty. When I locked it last night, it was full.” Helen rose and wiped her palms on her denim skirt. Black leggings covered her shapely legs. She wore flats and a plain beige sweater.
    “Stop with the whipped puppy look. You need to get yourself together. How much money was in the safe?” Jessica asked.
    Kalin pulled Jessica away from Helen, giving Helen some space. Jessica was Roy’s girlfriend, and Kalin didn’t want to hear from him later that she’d given Jessica a hard time, so she kept her voice polite. “Jessica, calm down. Okay? Yelling at Helen isn’t going to help.”
    With a shaky voice, Helen said, “I won’t know for sure until I total the receipts from last night’s cashouts, but I think…” Helen swallowed. “I think around one hundred thousand.”
    “That can’t be right. It’s too much for one day.”
    Orderly piles of receipts from the weekend covered Helen’s desk, and by the time she finished reconciling, Kalin expected she would know to the penny how much money had been stolen.
    Helen intertwined her fingers and pressed her palms together. “It’s from Saturday and Sunday. Plus the cash I keep for the floats.”
    “What are you talking about?” Jessica asked.
    “I didn’t take the money to the bank on Saturday. I–”
    Jessica arched her perfectly sculpted eyebrows. “You what?”
    “The bank requested I hold on to the money until today. They said the bank drop was broken.”
    “You’ve got to be kidding. Look, Turner will want to know the exact amount you lost, so hustle up and get the reconciling done.”
    “But…I didn’t lose the money.”
    “I need to tell Turner soon,” Jessica said.
    “We still have a problem,” Helen said. “I’ll start reconciling now, but I can’t finish until I get the receipts from night audit.”
    Jessica’s lip curled, and she exhaled in a growl. “Have you called Simon?”
    “I haven’t had the chance yet.”
    “Call him now. I’ll talk to Turner, then come back to help you. Get an accurate count done within an hour.”
    Having a cavity filled would be better than joining that conversation. Turner, the president of the resort, wasn’t known for accepting mistakes or failure well. And a theft would definitely fall under the failure category. Failure to secure the safe. As director of security, this was her fault. “Want me to