Brilliant. Jon loved how she thought outside the box. “When did you change suppliers?”
“Last week at all the stores, but earlier than that at the Billings store, though I didn’t tell them when I accepted . . .” She pressed her lips tight. “No, not the right word. Um . . .”
“Take your time,” Jon coaxed.
“I received . . . No.”
Adria’s eyes went wide. “You went to the new hydroponic warehouse to look at the operation and sign off on verification that they met the quality standards we put into the contract.”
Trinity sighed with relief. “Yes. And while I was there, I took delivery”—she beamed with a smile that she’d finally gotten her words right—“early and brought several boxes of greens to Billings because they ran out.”
“Because of the Robertson wedding!” Adria grasped Trinity’s arm. “So they’d switched over without even knowing. So what does that mean for the contamination and our customers getting sick?”
“You don’t think it was the lettuce,” Jon said for Trinity.
“Not if it was hydroponic lettuce. Can’t be. The stores would have run out of the Lettuce Harvest greens early last week.”
“You’re sure?” He needed to be before he started digging further.
“As sure as I can be with you and the doctor warning me about not being able to think straight.”
“But this makes sense to you?” Jon saw it in her eyes.
“Yes.” She held his gaze, imploring him to believe her. “Something else is wrong. I can’t think of what it is, but it’s something about Bountiful Foods.”
“Okay.” Jon remembered Nathan telling her she should take that deal. “They wanted to buy Almost Homemade, but you said no.”
“Not about that. About lettuce.”
“What about lettuce?” he asked, hoping to spark something more in her mind.
Tate held up his phone. “Tree Top Grocery recalled all their romaine lettuce about ten days ago because of E. coli contamination. They are owned by . . .”
“Bountiful Foods,” they all said in unison.
Trinity sighed with relief again. “Yes. That.”
Jon put his hand to her cheek. “You’re really locked in with the produce news.”
She nodded. “It hurts to think right now though.”
“You’re doing great.” He brushed his thumb across her cheek and she leaned into his palm.
Drake chimed in. “So Bountiful had a recall of their romaine ten days ago. Did their grower also supply Almost Homemade?”
Trinity almost shook her head, but stopped herself before the pain really hit her.
“Try to keep your head still, sweetheart.”
“I forget.”
“It’s automatic, I know, but seeing you in pain is killing me.”
Trinity drew closer to him, and he loved that she was finally putting her earlier thoughts and feelings aside and remembering they loved each other. “Not the same supplier, but I remember Nathan saying they took a hard hit for that recall because customers feared all the fruits and vegetables were contaminated in the stores.”
He thought about how aggressive Nathan became when he thought Trinity was selling the store to Jon. “Is Nathan associated to Bountiful Foods in some way?” He sure did want Trinity to sell to them.
“His father owns it.” An “ah-ha” lit Trinity’s eyes before she closed them and connected all the dots in her head she couldn’t earlier. “Nathan came to work for me because he wanted to be a chef and manager of the store to prove to his father he could run a successful business just like his dad. He wanted the inside track on the start-up. He is the point person for each new store we open because Adria and I can’t be everywhere at once. But what if the job with us was just a ruse so he could scout the business for his father’s company?” She opened her eyes and stared at him. “He cheated.”
“I think you mean he used you.” That’s what she’d meant before about him trying to buy her company. Which was not what he’d been trying to do. At all.
He wished it would stop coming up though, because it kept coming between them. And that’s the last thing he wanted.
“Yes,” she agreed.
Drake hooked his arm over Adria’s shoulders. “Well then, it’s a good thing we have surveillance at all the shops.”
Jon wished that were enough. “He manages the store. If he brought in contaminated lettuce and made up the salad kits with it, he’d have been smart enough to turn off the system.”
“Which is why there is a secondary system that kicks in whenever someone other than Trinity or Adria shuts off the cameras.”
Trinity grinned. “Paranoia pays off,” she said to her big brother.
Jon got it. Drake had some issues a while back. Adria’s sister had been killed in one of their stores. He understood why Drake would take extra precautions with his wife and sister. “So you think we have a recording of him doing this?”
“I guarantee we do,” Drake confirmed.
Jon thought of something else. “But there were cases of people getting sick from the Bozeman store as well.”
Adria supplied that answer. “We had two early morning employees out sick, so the Billings store sent over some of their salad kits so the Bozeman team could focus on the hot food counter offerings for that day.”
Jon thought that all made sense and everything tied back to Nathan. They still needed to prove it. But the state bureau and FDA would want to be sure. “We’ll still need to test the hydroponic greens both in the store and at the source to be sure. We’ll also want to test anything left over from Lettuce Harvest and at their farm to rule them out. Then the FDA and authorities can build their case against Nathan and Bountiful Foods if they can connect them to the sabotage.”
“Let’s go find out.” Trinity turned to go back down the hall.
He took her arm and stopped her. “Where are you going?”
“With Adria and Drake to check the recordings and contact the police.”
Jon, along with Tate, Drake, and Adria, said, “No.”
Her brow furrowed again. “But I can help.”
“The doctor said you need to rest. No bright lights. Only an hour of screen time and no stress.”
“But . . .” Her lips scrunched into a disgruntled pout.
“You have a concussion, and your brain was bleeding inside your cracked skull not even a full day ago. No.” He took her by the shoulders. “I couldn’t stop what happened with Steph. Let me take care of this for you and make sure Nathan doesn’t do anything else to ruin your business.”
Drake stepped close. “I only brought Adria over to see that you’re okay. I’m taking her home, then Jon and I will check the recordings and move forward with whatever needs to happen next with the FDA and authorities. We’ll take care of it, Trinity. Right now, you and Adria need to take care of yourselves.”
“But I can do this.”
“Of course you can,” Jon assured her. “You put all the pieces together. You figured out what is really going on here. I won’t let Nathan tarnish the company reputation, tank your sales to devalue the company, buy it cheap, and slap an Under New Management sign on it to bring customers back.”