Chapter 6
For a moment, no one moved.
Then Daniel set his pen beside the chart.
“Mrs. Lamb, I need to review the notes in your folder against the venue’s records. We have to reconcile each change to the guest count, menu, and services with the approval we received.”
Sherry folded the page along its old crease.
“You have the authorization.”
“We have a disputed authorization,” Daniel replied. “That’s why I’m asking for the records behind it.”
Her gaze moved from him to me. “Billie has already decided what she thinks.”
“I’ve decided I didn’t approve charges I never saw,” I said. “The records can speak for themselves.”
Toby stared down at the chart. A few minutes earlier, he’d asked me why I couldn’t let the evening pass without making trouble. Now the paper between us showed exactly how easily my place had been erased.
Sherry held on to her folder.
“It’s a working copy,” she said. “Nothing official.”
“Then it should be easy to distinguish from the official documents,” Daniel said. “May I see it?”
She hesitated, then placed the folder on the table as if she were loaning it to him, not surrendering it.
“Please don’t take anything out.”
“I’ll keep it here and make a record of what we review.”
Daniel opened the folder carefully. Inside were printed guest lists, table assignments, handwritten reminders, and several pages of menu options marked with checkmarks and arrows. His fingers paused at a sheet covered in columns.
He turned it so everyone could see.
At the top, in block letters, was a revised guest count: 72.
Under it were the additions: premium champagne, seafood station, imported flowers, upgraded dessert service. Each item had a short note beside it.
B. Huitt—payer.
On the next line, beside the expanded room setup:
B. Huitt—covered.
And beside the added tables:
B. Huitt—approved.
I read the words twice, hoping I’d misunderstood them the first time.
“I didn’t write that,” I said.
Sherry leaned back. “They’re ordinary planning notes.”
“Are they yours?” Daniel asked.
“They’re in my folder.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Her mouth tightened. “I made notes as we planned. Billie was handling the event.”
“I booked a dinner for twenty-four people,” I said. “And I told the venue in writing not to add expenses without my written approval.”
“You said you wanted Toby to have a wonderful birthday.”
“I did.”
“You knew the party was getting bigger.”
“I knew you kept asking for more. I did not agree to pay for it.”
Sherry tapped the page with one manicured nail.
“These are shorthand. They don’t have to be read like a contract.”
“They don’t have to be a contract to show what you believed—or wanted people to believe,” I said.
Paige stood close to the door, arms wrapped around herself. She looked at the notes, not at her mother.
“Mom, did you tell me Billie was paying for all of this?”
Sherry’s expression softened into something that might have been sympathy if it hadn’t come with an accusation.
“You knew she was the one who arranged the dinner.”
“I knew she booked the original dinner,” Paige said. “I didn’t know what the upgrades cost.”
“And you changed the seating chart,” Toby said.
Paige flinched. “I did. I’ve already said that was wrong.”
“Enough,” Sherry said. “We’re turning a birthday into an interrogation.”
Daniel’s voice stayed calm.
“We’re reviewing a bill that the venue was told Mrs. Huitt would pay. The review is necessary.”
He looked to me.
“Mrs. Huitt, do you recognize any of these notes as yours?”
“No.”
“Not the abbreviations? The lettering?”
“No. I don’t use block letters like that. And I wouldn’t write that I’d approved something I hadn’t approved.”
Sherry let out a thin breath.
“Billie, you’re acting as though a few notes prove some kind of scheme.”
“I’m not saying what they prove. I’m saying they aren’t mine.”
Daniel wrote something on his pad. “That’s what I’ll record.”
He turned another page. This one listed menu details and quantities. The notes beside the food were more elaborate: a number beside the seafood station, a mark beside the champagne, a handwritten reminder about the short ribs.
The recipe was mentioned by name.
“Leon’s recipe,” I said.
The words came out quieter than I meant them to.
“Chef said the kitchen needed the recipe,” Sherry answered. “It was a nice tribute.”
“You told him it was a tribute?”
“I told him it was Toby’s family recipe.”
“It was Leon’s recipe,” I said. “And I gave it to the venue for the dinner I planned.”
Toby looked at me. For the first time since we had entered the room, he seemed to understand that there was more at stake than who sat where.
“Mom, Dad would have wanted the short ribs served,” he said.
“I know,” I replied. “That’s why I gave them the recipe. I wanted to share something of his with you. I didn’t know I was giving the party a story to tell without me.”
Toby opened his mouth, then closed it again.
Sherry pushed the folder toward Daniel.
“Fine. Review the notes. None of this changes the signed authorization.”
“Actually,” Daniel said, “it’s why we’re reviewing the authorization.”
He moved to the venue tablet on the side table. I watched his face as he scrolled through the event record.
“We preserved the file as received,” he said. “I’m comparing the attachment package with the original reservation materials. There may be additional records that show where the supporting documents came from.”
Sherry’s expression sharpened.
“What supporting documents?”
“The attachments associated with the revised authorization.”
“I already sent the authorization.”
“According to the event record, there were multiple attachments.”
She turned toward him. “I don’t remember sending multiple attachments.”
“You don’t have to remember. The system shows what was received.”
Daniel tapped through several entries. The quiet clicks felt louder than the distant laughter from the Grand Hall. Beyond the meeting-room door, someone clapped. A microphone carried the muffled rise of a toast, then faded.
Daniel leaned closer to the screen.
“Here’s the revised authorization. And here’s an image file attached with it.”
“What image?” Toby asked.
Daniel didn’t answer immediately. He was reading.
Then he turned the tablet enough for us to see.
The image was a scan of a page from my original reservation packet. My name sat beneath the printed terms, and below it was my signature.
I recognized the loop in the B. The little rise at the end of Huitt. I’d signed that page at my kitchen table months ago.
My throat tightened.
“Where did that come from?” I asked.
“I’m checking the record now,” Daniel said. “This copy appears to be from the original booking materials.”
I kept my eyes on the tablet.
The scanned signature was mine.
The other signature—the one on the revised authorization—was still not.
I leaned closer. The scan was not a fresh signature, not a new page I could remember signing. It was the old one, lifted from the paperwork I had provided when I booked the dinner.
“Can you tell when that image was attached?” I asked.
Daniel scrolled again.
“The system records when the package arrived. I’m checking the earlier correspondence linked to it.”
Sherry’s chair scraped lightly against the floor.
“Daniel, that’s not necessary. Billie’s signature is already on file. That’s why the venue had it.”
“Having a signature on file doesn’t explain who added it to the revised authorization,” he said. “I’m not making a finding. I’m tracing the records.”
“Maybe it was attached automatically,” Sherry said.
“Maybe,” Daniel replied. “That’s one possibility. We shouldn’t assume.”
I heard Leon’s voice in my memory, gentle and certain: Don’t rush it. Do it right.
I looked toward the empty space where my name had once been penciled beside Table One. The same thing had happened here, I realized. Someone had treated my name as a convenient mark: something to move, remove, or copy wherever it made the evening easier.
“Billie,” Toby said, “I didn’t know that was in there.”
I turned to him.
“I’m not asking what you knew yet.”
His face changed at the word yet.
Daniel continued to scroll, then stopped.
“There’s an earlier email chain attached to the image file,” he said. “It contains the same scan.”
“Who was on it?” I asked.
Daniel studied the screen for a few seconds longer.
“It was a chain that included Toby.”
Nobody spoke.
Toby stared at Daniel’s tablet as if the names might rearrange themselves into an explanation.
“What email chain?” he asked.
May you like
Daniel looked up at him.
“The original scan came from an email chain that included you.”
