"I won't ask you to trust Haven," she said. "But I'll keep asking the questions until we have answers. Even if you buy somewhere else."
June held the door open. "That's a better place to start."
- • •
Grant did not shout when Tessa told him about the meeting. He waited until the showroom closed, walked into her cubicle, and placed a printed report on her desk. A red rectangle circled the Bell County lead.
"You've changed the status without authorization," he said.
"I added technical questions."
"You met a customer assigned to my office."
"You had marked them as unlikely to purchase."
"I determine lead value. You don't."
Tessa recognized the posture. Grant liked to stand with both hands on the back of a chair, as though a conversation were a vehicle he could prevent from moving. She kept her own hands flat on the desk.
"They have a county grant and are collecting bids for at least four vehicles," she said. "They asked legitimate questions about the emergency release."
For an instant Grant looked surprised, then pleasantly alert. "Four?"
"Potentially six."
"Well." He straightened. "That changes the picture. You should have led with that. We'll prepare a quote."
"They also need to know whether our workshop is certified for the conversion. Mina says the inspection isn't complete."
"The supplier certifies the product."
"Mina is asking for a traceable batch record."
Grant sighed as though he were teaching a slow pupil. "Do you know how many manufacturers issue updates during a model year? If every customer waited until every line of every bulletin was perfect, nobody would drive anything."
"This update concerns whether a passenger can open the door during a power failure."
"And nobody has reported an accident."
"That isn't the same as saying the risk is resolved."
His expression changed. "Be careful. You're not a lawyer, and you're not an engineer. You sell cars. If you want to run the technical department, I can arrange for you to start at the bottom of its pay scale."
Tessa thought of Ruth's medication tin and the rehabilitation bill on her kitchen counter. She had enough savings for seven weeks of expenses, perhaps eight if nothing broke. Grant knew about her mother. He had used the information once as proof that he understood how important the promotion was.
"I want the bid to be accurate," she said.
"Then submit the approved specifications and leave the rest to me."
He collected the report and left. Tessa stared at the empty desk. She had never been fired. Her entire adult life had been organized around avoiding the mistake that might make someone decide she was expendable. The company had made that fear useful. It did not require an explicit threat when a promise could do the same work.
Her phone buzzed. Ruth had sent a photograph of a crooked loaf of bread. FIRST SUCCESSFUL BAKING SINCE THE HOSPITAL, the message read. She added a second text: THE CRUST IS TERRIBLE, BUT I MADE IT.
Tessa called her. They talked about bread for five minutes. Then Tessa asked what Ruth would do if the library director had told her to ignore a dangerous broken stair because repairing it might interrupt the fundraiser.
"That's an oddly specific question," Ruth said.
"What would you do?"
"I'd put a chair in front of it, call the building inspector, and take whatever trouble followed."
"What if you needed the job?"
"I did need the job. Almost every time I made a hard decision, I needed the job."
After the call, Tessa sent Mina a message asking for a written explanation of the certification issue. Then she opened a blank spreadsheet and entered the dates of the supplier bulletin, the quarantined cable shipment, and Grant's instruction to use the approved specifications. She did not yet know whether she was building evidence or protecting herself from the accusation that she had imagined it.
- • •
Mina Alvarez had been hired at Haven Motors when the building was still an empty concrete shell. She had helped choose the first lifts and compressors, argued for more drainage in the service yard, and learned early that the showroom and workshop used the same word for very different things. In the showroom, ready meant a vehicle was cleaned and financed. In the workshop, it meant she would put her family inside without losing sleep.
She kept a paper log in the bottom drawer of her desk. Noah called it the dinosaur notebook, because it recorded failures that computers occasionally forgot. Its pages contained dates, part numbers, technicians' initials, and short notes in Mina's unusually neat handwriting.