The admission sounded painful. It needed to be.
“Where is she now?” I asked.
“She left the company in June.”
“Why?”
“He told me she had taken another job.”
I heard papers moving on his end of the line.
“Maya, there’s more. Our records show she signed off on the assemblies. She never mentioned it to me.”
“Have you spoken to her?”
“I tried. The number we have doesn’t work.”
“Give the investigators everything you have.”
“I will. I’m calling because—”
“You’re calling because you found a problem.”
“I’m calling because I don’t know who in my own company I can trust.”
He sounded old. I had never heard that in his voice before.
“I can’t investigate this for you,” I said.
“I’m not asking you to.”
But he had asked me to change a record that morning. His son had said so in front of him.
“Then why call me?”
Victor breathed into the phone.
“When you were little,” he said, “you used to sit under my drafting table.”
I looked toward the dark window. “I remember.”
“You’d pick up the broken pieces and ask who had to carry them if they failed.”
“You told me to put them down. The edges were sharp.”
“I remember that too.”
His voice broke. I waited.
“I taught Blake how to talk about responsibility,” he said. “I don’t think I taught him what it means.”
“And what did you teach me?”
He could not answer.
We ended the call soon after.
I slept badly. In the morning, I found two missed calls from Victor and one message.
I gave the investigators access to the depot.
I stared at the words. It was the right decision. It was also one he could have made before calling me.
I replied, Thank you for telling me.
For the next three days, I heard nothing more from him. I reported to work, answered questions about supply routes, and accepted congratulations from colleagues who had not yet heard about the convoy investigation.
The medal remained beside my keys.
On Thursday, Dr. Ellis called through official channels. The sealed containers had been opened. Several held the lower grade assemblies. Others held approved parts.
“The mixed stock matters,” she said. “It suggests someone knew there was a difference.”
She could not tell me who. She could tell me the former chief engineer had been located.
Her name was Naomi Price.
I remembered Naomi from Victor’s company holiday parties. She had dark curls, a dry sense of humor, and a habit of asking me what I was reading. Once, when I was seventeen, she had spent half an hour explaining a valve design because I refused to pretend I understood it.
I had not seen her in years.
An investigator asked whether I had any current contact with her. I did not.
That night, Naomi called me.
“I got your number from the investigator,” she said. “I asked if I could contact you. He said it was your decision, so he gave me a number that would reach your office first.”
“What do you need?”
“To apologize for something that has nothing to do with the investigation.”
I moved away from the kitchen counter.
“When you left home,” Naomi said, “your father told me you didn’t want anyone from the company contacting you.”
“That isn’t true.”
“I know that now. You called my office twice that winter. Blake took the messages.”
A memory came back so clearly that I gripped the phone. I had been twenty-two, stationed far from home. I had called Naomi because she was the only person at the company who might tell me whether Victor was well.
She had never returned either call.
“I thought you chose not to,” I said.
“I never received the messages. I found them last month, in an old file Blake asked us to destroy.”
“Why would he keep them?”
“I don’t know. I can tell you what else was in that file.”
My pulse quickened.
“Letters,” she said. “Cards addressed to your father. Some opened, some still sealed. They were filed with personal correspondence that went through Blake’s office.”
I had sent many of them. After the first few were returned, I began using Victor’s office address. When those went unanswered, I stopped.
