Cate headed to the store earlier than normal the next morning.  She had the schedule for the week to finish before the store opened, and she needed to take a few moments to mentally plan her conversation with Carl Dawson about promoting Jodi to assistant manager.  The phone was ringing as she walked in the door.

“Dawson’s Cards and Gifts, this is Cate.  How may I help you?”

“Caitlyn Jordan, please.”

“This is Caitlyn speaking.  How may I help you?” she repeated.

“My name is Lt. Marcus Ames with the Fort Wayne Police Department.”  Cate listened in stunned disbelief to the man as he elaborated his reason for calling.  Greg’s firm had filed a fraud complaint against them?  Already? She glanced at her watch.  It was 9:13 on a Monday morning.  Someone at the firm was making impressive time for the week.  Cate forced herself to listen to what Lt. Ames was saying.  “We’ll need to take statements from both you and the employee in question.”

“Kara is no longer employed here,” she managed, her mind still whirling.  Was this what lawyers were like?  Greg had seemed nice enough, but the firm he worked for was apparently filled with predatory types who didn’t understand the concept of an honest mistake.

“Do you have any contact information for her, miss?  We really do need to speak with her as soon as possible—we have to take claims like this seriously, but I’m sure it was just an honest mistake, and the sooner we make that clear, the better.”

Cate suddenly liked this Lt. Ames rather a lot.  She rattled off Kara’s cell phone number and promised to stop by to give her statement that afternoon.  Thankfully, no one was being charged with a crime—the police were simply investigating the matter, and as the manager, she was the likely person to talk to.  Carl was going to throw a fit, she knew—which would make her intended conversation that much more difficult. 

The rest of the morning flew by—Cate never did get the chance to call her boss.  The cashier who was supposed to open with her arrived late, and the flurry of activity to get the store’s gate open in time pushed thoughts of anything except taking down the rest of the Mother’s Day goods far from Cate’s mind. Graduation and Father’s Day were right around the corner, or so the plan-o-grams dictated, and Cate knew she needed to locate the boxes of merchandise from previous years to combine with the new orders that were stacked in the back room.  She took a few minutes to make herself a list and headed to the back room to start checking labels.

She was standing amidst a sea of boxes, checklist in hand, when the phone rang again.

“Cate, it’s Carl.”  The store owner didn’t even let Cate say hello before launching into a discussion of the best way to hire an assistant manager.  Cate hadn’t planned on discussing this with her boss before telling him about the phone call from Lt. Ames, but she realized this might be the easier way to handle it.

She waited for him to pause, and then began, “Actually, Carl, I’ve been thinking about that, and I may have a solution.”

“What’s that?”

Cate took a deep breath and plunged ahead.  “Since she started here two years ago, Jodi has been taking on an increasing level of responsibility.  She knows this store as well as I do, has proven time and again that she’s trustworthy and dependable, and even covered extra hours for me yesterday—on Mother’s Day.  I think she’d make an excellent assistant manager, and I want to promote her right away.”   

Carl Dawson was silent for a moment, and Cate feared for the worst.  Mentally, she began to prepare to argue her case, trying to stay respectful of their positions, yet determined to have her way on this matter.  “If you have that much faith in her, Cate, go ahead and promote her.”

“I really think she deserves this and . . . promote her?”

“Yes, Cate, promote her.  You’ve shown yourself to be an excellent evaluator of your employees and, if I recall, you had reservations about hiring Kara in the first place, but I overrode you.”  Cate had remembered this as well, but hadn’t wanted to mention it to her boss.  “I can’t remember exactly what we were paying Kara, but Jodi’s been with us for two years already—I’ll trust you to work out the details of her raise so that she can quit that other part-time job she has.”

Cate blinked back her surprise.  “Thank you, Carl—Jodi will be thrilled when I let her know later.  Oh!  There’s something else I need to tell you.”  She paused, but he waited for her to continue.  “Lt. Ames from the police department called earlier—the law firm that holds the corporate credit card we had the mistake on this weekend has filed a compliant.”

“They filed a police report over a mistake on a credit card?”  Carl’s voice was slightly incredulous.

“Well, it was a million dollars.”  Cate cringed at the words, but she felt the need to remind Carl that this wasn’t a small matter.  “Lt. Ames did say he’s sure it was an honest mistake and that it can be resolved quickly—they want to speak to Kara right away, and I’ve been asked to go to the station and file a statement after work today.”

“Just make sure it’s taken care of, Caitlyn.”  Carl only used the store manager’s first name when he was serious about something.  Cate reassured her boss that she would do just that and excused herself from the phone, still marveling at how easily he had agreed to Jodi’s promotion.

Where’s your faith, Caitlyn Marie? she asked herself with a small shake of her head.  Jodi would be arriving in a few hours, and she could hardly wait to share the good news with her friend and employee.  Cate realized she would still need to hire another employee to cover the gaps in the schedule left by Kara’s departure—most of her employees other than Jodi were students and their availability would be good for the summer, but once school started back up in the fall, there would be classes and clubs and sports to contend with, not to mention study time.

Finding someone who could reliably work days, though, was more of a challenge than she’d expected.  It was the reason she had originally taken a chance on Jodi—at times, retail hiring seemed to be as much about finding a body to be in the store as looking for any particular skills in potential employees.  Cate wondered if there were any women from church who would be interested in picking up a few hours while their children were in school.  If the classified ads she planned to put in the newspaper that afternoon didn’t pan out, she might have to see if she could get an announcement put in the church bulletin the following week.

“Cate, there’s a customer here who wants to talk to you.”  Her thoughts interrupted once again, Cate moved to her desk to make a note to call about an ad for a new cashier and headed out front to take are of the situation, her mind racing ahead to Jodi’s arrival that afternoon.