The Journal: Fault Line (The Journal Book 5) Read online

  “To conserve the stock in the stores.”

  “You must be a trusted employee to have that information,” she commented.

  “Christine, I own the stores,” he confessed. “The T’N’M stands for Trevor Nicolas Monroe. That’s me.”

  “Oh.”

  “Does that bother you?” he asked cautiously.

  “Not at all. It’s just a surprise because you’re so young.”

  “Thirty-five isn’t all that young. Besides, you have a successful career at thirty, right?” he continued. “More wine?”

  “Thanks. Now, explain to me what you mean about conserving the stores’ stock. Don’t you get regular shipments?”

  “Ah, now that’s the kicker. With this earthquake happening—and my sales have jumped through the roof by the way—I called my suppliers for an extra delivery. Apparently all shipping has come to a halt. Nothing can get over the Mississippi River right now. No shipping means no deliveries, and no deliveries mean no food for any stores, big or small.”

  He went silent while that sunk in.

  “I hadn’t thought about it that way. What are people going to do?” Christine asked in alarm.

  “Let me ask you this, Christine. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe I should go into Indianapolis and do some grocery shopping at one of the bigger stores; stock up on a few things.”

  “The bigger the city, the bigger the problems. If you do decide to go in, please let me go with you. I don’t think it’s going to be safe for anyone, especially not a pretty girl.”

  “You think I’m pretty?” she asked, the wine making her bold.

  “No, you’re not pretty; you’re beautiful.” He leaned across the narrow wooden table and gently touched his lips to hers. “There may be an alternative shopping trip. I’m going to need help to discreetly move all my stock into one secure store. If you help me, I’ll pay you in food.” He had withdrawn to his side of the table, leaving Christine reeling from the brief kiss.

  ***

  “May I ask you a personal question, Trevor?” Christine said a few minutes later after she composed herself.

  “Sure, ask away.”

  “Well, it’s not really a question. You’re a really good looking guy and obviously smart and successful, so I’m surprise you’re not married or have a girlfriend. Or do you?” She hesitated. “I’m sorry, maybe that’s too personal.”

  “It’s personal sure, but I don’t have a problem telling you.” He leaned back against the couch looking into his glass of wine. “I’m not married and I don’t have a girlfriend. Frankly, I haven’t had time to date, much less consider a serious relationship. I’ve been too busy building my business. I work twelve to fifteen hours a day, and never the same hours. I rotate between the three stores filling in, doing payroll, restocking, all those little things that help me keep in touch with what the stores are doing. That kind of schedule isn’t conducive to having a relationship last.” He took a sip from his glass. “What about you? Why aren’t you married with a couple of kids?”

  “Similar story. I’ve been busy going to school and working on my career. Besides, I haven’t met anyone I wanted to settle down with, at least not yet,” she answered. “And thanks for being honest with me. I think that’s important.”

  ***

  Trevor tossed and turned most of the night. When he wasn’t thinking about his business, he was thinking about Christine. Earthquakes and blue eyes, a combination deadly to a peaceful rest. He finally gave up trying to sleep and turned on the TV. The news splashed across his big screen. Food shortages were already being felt and were resulting in riots. Law enforcement was highly suggesting staying out of the major cities and backing it up with curfews and roadblocks. It wouldn’t be long before the violence spilled out of the city and into the quiet suburbs. Trevor had another decision to make.

  He paced his kitchen while the coffee maker did its thing and delivered a mellow cup of brew. With pen and paper in hand, he sat at the tiny table and made some notes. It stymied him how best to keep his stores from being raided and vandalized. Unless he didn’t have anything left…

  ***

  Trevor waited until nine in the morning to call Christine.

  “I’m glad you’re up. Can I stop over? I have something I need to bounce off of someone and I think you might be the best one for an objective view,” he said when she answered on the first ring. When he had left the night before, parting was awkward. He’d really wanted to kiss her, he was also afraid that once he started he wouldn’t want to stop. He was drawn to her like no one before, and for some reason that escaped him, he wanted to take their relationship slow, hoping it would finally be the one that might last.

  “Sure, I’ll put on a fresh pot of coffee,” Christine said, her heart racing with the thought of seeing Trevor again. When he didn’t even try to kiss her goodnight, she feared that it was over between them before it even had a chance to start.

  By the time Trevor arrived, Christine had changed clothes three times and reset the table twice.

  “You look really good in the morning,” he said shyly. “Have I told you yet today you’re beautiful?” He cupped her chin with his hand and gently kissed her. “Wow, I’d like to do that again, I’m afraid I would get too distracted though, and today is going to be a busy day.”

  They sat at the kitchen table sipping fresh coffee, Trevor with his notepad and Christine listening while he explained his dilemma.

  “I’ve got three stores, you know that. What I also have currently is near empty shelves, though there is a good amount of stock in the back of each store. What I’m also faced with is the possibility of vandalism and theft. I understand people are going to get hungry, and they will do anything to get food for their families, and I don’t want them smashing my windows to get it. I do plan on reopening all the stores once things settle down. That might not be for weeks, even months, and I want my places intact.”

  “What are you going to do?” Christine asked, taking a bite of the toast she had made for them. The loaf of bread she had picked up the other night was quickly dwindling.

  “That’s why I’m here. I’m hoping you could give me some fresh ideas.”

  Christine thought about it while she got the coffee pot to refill their cups. “People can’t steal if you don’t have anything.”

  “I’ve thought about that. I don’t like the idea of good food going to waste though. There’s a great deal of perishable food in each store and we sure can’t eat forty loaves of bread before it all goes stale. Then there is everything in the coolers: milk, ice cream, eggs, things like that.”

  “People also can’t steal your stuff if you give it to them. What if you give away all those perishable items, would that satisfy people enough to keep them away from the stores?”

  He thought about that for a minute. “And I can regulate how much I give by how much they see. Christine, that’s brilliant!” he beamed. “I also want to give my employees a chance to get some of the stock too. After all, they mean more to me than strangers.”

  “You have three stores. What if you divide what’s on the shelves between two stores and move all extra stock to the third store, that way no one will see what you really have.”

  “I can let the employees have their pick of one store, then move anything left to the next store and open it to the public. Once the shelves are picked clean, I can open the blinds so it will be obvious there’s nothing left. I like this, and it just might work.”

  “What’s your plan of action now?” she asked, thinking of that kiss and feeling warm inside.

  “First would be to decide which store for which group.”

  “What about which store to keep your stock at?” she asked.

  “That’s easy. The Spring Hill store, since that’s where I live.”

  “You live in one of your stores?” she raised a finely sculpted eyebrow.

  “It was my first store. To work it, I converted the upsta
irs into an apartment so I could be there all the time. It isn’t much, a bedroom, a bath, and an open living area with a kitchenette. It’s comfortable and has served me well these past few years since I don’t need much space.”

  “That makes sense.” With a gleam in her eye Christine said, “I’ll be right back.”

  Trevor busied himself making more toast, and noticed how low the bread bag was, instantly realizing how much he wanted to take care of this new girl in his life.

  When she returned, Christine had a sketch pad and a box of colored pencils. She quickly drew a series of roads in black and drew three squares in purple to represent the different stores.

  “Spring Hill is between stores two and three and a bit to the north,” she tapped the one square and put a “1” inside the lines. Trevor took the pencil from her and put a “2” at Main Street and a “3” at Exit 31, recreating the order he’d acquired the stores.

  “If we use a green pencil to designate perishables, blue for liquid and non-perishables like bottled water, beer, wine and so on, and red for back room stock, how would you divide what you have?” She laid the three pencils in front of him.

  He picked up the green pencil and drew a line from store #1 to #2 and to #3, then from #2 to #3, then put an arrow to indicate the direction of flow.

  Christine looked at the lines. “Explain.”

  “We split the stuff from Spring Hill between the two, and after the employees take what they want, we take the rest to the remaining store.”

  “Okay, I understand that. Wouldn’t it be better to have the Main Street store the one open to the public? It would have better access.”

  “While that’s true, it’s also the drawback. Once word gets out I’m giving everything away, it would be a free for all and we may have a riot,” Trevor explained. “Out on the highway there will still be a lot of traffic, but it would be more controllable.” He paused. “That makes me think of another option.” He pulled his note pad closer and started writing, picked up the blue pencil and drew more lines, then used the red.

  “What’s the first thing you need to do, Trevor?” Christine asked, pulling his attention back to the drawing.

  “The number one priority will be to visit each store and assess what’s on hand. Come on.” He pulled her up from the chair and hugged her, then pushed her to arm’s length and smiled. “This is going to be quite the adventure. Are you ready?”

  “Let me grab my purse and a jacket.”

  ***

  Trevor backed his delivery step-van into his reserved spot behind the store on Main Street. He punched a code into the alarm and opened the service door to let Christine in and turned on the lights. He stopped to write something down on his pad.

  “Can you help me to remember to change the keypad codes at each store?” he asked, and she nodded. He stood there a few minutes, reprogramming that entrance code.

  Christine looked around at the crowded room. The amount of boxes and crates astonished her. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the large coolers.

  “Those are the store rooms for, and access to, the coolers out front,” Trevor replied. “Whenever the cooler runs low on milk or water, we come back here and fill from behind, pushing everything forward. That way everything stays rotated, and the stock stays cold.” He led the way to the front of the store.

  “There looks to still be a lot on the shelves, but I can see that there is a lot less than usual,” Christine said, walking the short aisles, stopping in the bakery section. “Even if most of your suppliers can’t get across the earthquake zone, can’t you still get bread and milk?”

  “For a while, sure. However, the bakery in the next town still needs flour to make the bread and that flour comes from out west. Once they run out, they can’t get resupplied either.”

  “Oh,” Christine said. “I suddenly feel stupid and ignorant about all this.”

  “Stupid and ignorant are two vastly different things. Ignorance is the absence of knowledge. Stupidity is the inability, or the lack of willingness, to gain that knowledge. You, my dear, are not stupid, and you’ve never had the need for some of this information so we can and will fix that.” He moved around behind the counter.

  “With the lights on in here aren’t people going to know someone is inside?” Christine asked nervously. “Maybe we should come back at night.”

  “The lights would be even more obvious at night. Right now, the lighting blends in with the daylight. We just need to be quiet,” Trevor answered. “Give me a hand with some boxes?”

  Together they filled a dozen boxes with cigarettes and liquor bottles from the shelves behind the counter, setting the filled boxes by the back door.

  “There’s still more back here,” Christine commented, looking behind the counter.

  “If we take everything, it will look suspicious. Besides, I have an idea, and I’ll explain over lunch.”

  Retrieving the boxes the bottles came in, Christine filled another six boxes with wine from the shelves, and another three from the cooler. “What about all this milk?”

  “Leave it. It’s still good and people should have some. Let’s see what we’ve got in back so far,” Trevor said, leading the way into the stock room, shutting off the front lights.

  After surveying the piles of boxes, Trevor and Christine started loading the back of the van, acutely aware they would need to make two trips. After unloading the van into the cavernous storeroom at Spring Hill, they took a break for lunch.

  Getting their burgers, they sat in the furthest corner away from the few customers in the restaurant.

  “What’s our next step?” Christine said around a bite of her cheeseburger. “I could tell you were doing a lot of thinking while we boxed things up.”

  “I’ve been thinking about what you said regarding access, and I agree. The Main Street store should be the one for the public, if I can get the police involved with it.”

  “The police?”

  “I know the police chief fairly well. They all have families too, Christine, and if I offer to let them in first, I think they will be willing to… um… make their presence known while the community strips my shelves. It should help to maintain some order.” Trevor smiled slyly.

  ***

  “Trevor!” Police Chief Martin Mallory stuck his hand out to greet the young entrepreneur. “I’m surprised I haven’t seen you sooner. And before you ask, I can’t spare any extra patrols for your stores. I’m really sorry, but we’re starting to see a spillover from Indianapolis. It’s getting ugly out there.”

  “I appreciate that you’ve considered it, Marty. I’m shutting down the stores so I won’t need patrols, though I have something else in mind.” Trevor explained his plan to the officer.

  “That’s very generous of you, Trevor. Shouldn’t you be saving your stock for you and your girl?” Marty leaned forward on his meaty elbows, glancing at Christine.

  “I’m setting aside plenty for us.” Trevor felt a stirring with Christine being referred to as his girl. “My main objective is to save the stores from looting and vandalism. If there’s nothing there, perhaps they will leave the stores alone.”

  “And for a couple of officers to watch over the citizens during this giveaway, you’ll give us stuff too?”

  “Yes. There won’t be any liquor or other alcohol available to the public, only to my employees and the police if you want it, plus you can have whatever food you want.”

  “I’m happy to hear that about the booze,” Marty said. “People get real stupid when they get drunk.” He thought for a moment. “It’s a deal. When do you plan on doing this?”

  “I’m going with Sunday at 3pm or some of the food will start going bad. That gives me two days to get things squared away. I’ll put up a notice on the front door, and if you could spread the word, too, that’d be great.” Trevor stood and shook the chief’s hand again. He was halfway to the door when he stopped. “Marty, do you have a half hour to spare right now? Come on over to the sto
re on Main and come in the back.”

  ***

  Christine slid her hand into Trevor’s as they walked back to the van. “You’re amazing, you know that? You’re getting exactly what you want.”

  I hope so, Trevor thought looking down at the petite girl next to him. I sure hope so.

  They were loading unopened cases into the van when the squad car pulled in beside it.

  “Hey, Chief, glad you could make it. Come on inside.” Trevor led the way into the front of the store. The blinds were still down and secured, and only one bank of lights was on. Trevor pulled one of the baskets out and rolled it toward the police officer. “Help yourself, Marty. The perishables like bread and milk are out here, and I’ll set aside some cases for you by the door.”

  Once the chief had filled his basket with milk, bread, eggs, and few packages of pasta, he met Trevor at the back door by the van.

  “You’re sure about all this?” he asked.

  “Absolutely, Marty. There’s a couple cases of mixed vegetables, soups, and boxed dinners. If I recall, you’re a Beam guy, right? Here,” Trevor handed over a box with six big bottles of alcohol and a six pack of beer.

  When everything was secured and the trunk closed, the police chief came back into the storeroom to find Trevor still loading boxes into the van.

  “Thank you, Trevor. My wife is going to be relieved. Here is my personal cell number. When you’re ready, call and remind me and I’ll get another officer to assist me with crowd control.”

  ***

  When Trevor and Christine finished unloading the van into neat piles at the Spring Hill store, they reloaded it with perishables destined for Main Street.