"According to the records, yes."
"Who signed for them?"
"The electronic signatures belong to employees who say they never received anything."
Walter turned another page.
A photograph showed a cracked suspension mounting bracket.
Then another.
Then another.
Every photograph had been taken from a different motorcycle.
Walter's expression darkened.
"What am I looking at?"
"Warranty claims from customers who purchased the Crown Voyager Touring Edition."
"How many?"
"At least forty-seven."
"Forty-seven failures?"
"Forty-seven documented complaints. We don't know how many went unreported."
Walter stared at the photographs.
The brackets displayed a pattern he recognized immediately.
Hairline fractures around the welds.
Stress concentration near the mounting points.
A defect that could develop gradually before failing without warning.
"These parts shouldn't be breaking," he said.
Richard nodded.
"Our chief technician said the same thing."
"Who?"
"Daniel Ruiz."
"Where is he?"
Richard hesitated.
"Suspended."
Walter slowly lifted his eyes.
"Why?"
"Officially, insubordination."
"And unofficially?"
"He refused to sign a report blaming the customers for the damage."
Walter closed the folder.
"Who suspended him?"
"Brandon filed the complaint. Arthur approved it."
For a long moment, Walter looked toward the old photograph.
Then he spoke in a voice so quiet that Richard had to lean forward to hear.
"Find Daniel Ruiz."
"Sir?"
"Find him. Today."
Richard nodded.
"And Richard?"
"Yes?"
"Nobody gets warned."
Walter tapped the folder.
"Not Brandon. Not Arthur. Nobody."
Richard swallowed.
"Understood."
Walter picked up the anonymous letter again.
His instincts told him that whoever had sent it was not merely concerned about missing money.
There was something else.
Something connected to the Heritage Edition.
And something about the motorcycle itself had already been troubling him.
He remembered the way the rear frame had been assembled. The modified mounting geometry. The unusual position of a small reinforcement plate.
The alteration was subtle.
Most customers would never notice.
Most salespeople certainly wouldn't.
But Walter had designed the earliest version of that frame with his own hands.
And the reinforcement plate he had seen downstairs was nearly identical to an experimental part he had developed twenty years earlier.
A part that had never entered production.
A part that had been removed from every engineering archive after the accident.
Walter looked at Richard.
"Who designed the Heritage Edition?"
"The corporate engineering division."
"Who supervised the project?"
"Arthur Bell."
Walter stood.
"Take me to the service department."
Richard glanced at his watch.
"Now?"
"Now."
As they approached the office door, Walter stopped.
"One more thing."
"Yes, sir?"
"Does Arthur know about this folder?"
Richard hesitated.
"No."
"Are you certain?"
"I've kept it locked away."
Walter looked at him.
"Then why did he call you within minutes of my arrival?"
Richard went still.
For the first time, he seemed to understand the full meaning of the question.
Walter continued.
"Someone told him I was here. Someone knew I'd walked into this showroom, and someone knew he needed to make that call."
Downstairs, Brandon Pierce was speaking rapidly into his mobile phone.
Walter watched him through the office window.
He could not hear the words.
He didn't need to.
A moment later, Brandon ended the call and looked up.
Their eyes met through the glass.
Brandon immediately looked away.
Walter turned toward Richard.
"I think," he said, "we've just found our first loose thread."
Brandon had never considered himself a bad man.
That was how he explained his behavior to himself, anyway.
He was ambitious, certainly. Competitive. Sometimes impatient. But in the ruthless world of luxury sales, he believed those qualities were strengths rather than flaws.
He had grown up in a modest neighborhood outside Cincinnati, the son of a warehouse supervisor who had spent thirty-eight years working for the same company and retired with barely enough money to cover his medical bills.
Brandon had watched his father struggle.
He had watched wealthy customers walk into places like Sterling Crown and spend more on a weekend hobby than his family had earned in a decade.
And somewhere along the way, resentment had hardened into a philosophy.
Money meant power.
Power meant respect.
And anyone who lacked money or power was either foolish, lazy, or irrelevant.
By thirty-four, Brandon had built his entire identity around proving that he belonged among the people he once envied.
He leased a luxury car he could barely afford. He bought expensive suits on credit. He lived in an apartment overlooking the river, even though his rent consumed almost half his salary.
At work, he boasted about his wealthy clients.
Outside work, he borrowed money to maintain the appearance of success.
And when Arthur Bell had offered him a way to earn additional commissions, Brandon had accepted without asking too many questions.
At first, the arrangement had seemed harmless.
Certain motorcycles would be steered toward preferred buyers. Certain warranty claims would be handled internally rather than reported to corporate. Certain customers would be encouraged to trade in machines that had developed mechanical problems.
Brandon would receive a bonus for meeting special performance targets.
Arthur called it an executive incentive program.
Brandon called it getting ahead.
Only later had he realized that the bonuses came from accounts that did not appear on his official pay statements.
By then, he had already taken too much money to walk away easily.
Now Walter Sterling had arrived.
And Brandon was terrified.
He stood near the entrance to the service corridor, staring at his phone.
His last call had been to a man named Conrad Voss, Arthur Bell's personal assistant and head of corporate compliance.
Conrad had answered on the second ring.
"Speak."
"Walter Sterling is here."
A long silence.
"Where?"
"Columbus. The flagship dealership."
"Is he alone?"
"Yes."
"What does he know?"
"I don't know."
"Has he seen any documents?"
"He's upstairs with Richard."
Conrad swore.
"Did Richard show him anything?"
"I don't know!"
"Lower your voice."
Brandon glanced around.
"No one is listening."
"Listen carefully. Do not let Sterling near the engineering records."
"How am I supposed to stop him? He owns the company."
"Then distract him."
"With what?"
"Use your imagination."
The call had ended before Brandon could respond.
Now, standing in the showroom, he felt the first genuine fear of his adult life.
Not fear of losing status.
Not fear of embarrassment.
Fear that he had stepped into something much bigger than he understood.
He looked toward the glass office.
Walter was standing beside Richard.
Then Walter turned and looked directly at him.
Brandon felt his stomach drop.
He hurried toward the rear corridor.
He needed to retrieve the small black flash drive hidden in his desk.
Conrad had given it to him three weeks earlier, instructing him to transfer copies of dealership inventory records, customer purchase histories, and internal engineering updates.
Brandon had completed the transfers.
He had not asked why a compliance executive needed customer information copied onto a personal device.
He had not wanted to know.
But now he knew enough to be afraid of what the device contained.
He reached his office, shut the door, and pulled open the desk drawer.
The flash drive was gone.
Brandon froze.
He searched the drawer again.
Then the second drawer.
Then the filing cabinet.
Nothing.
His phone vibrated.
A message appeared from an unknown number.
Looking for something?