PART 11:

I didn’t put the designation on the slide because it wasn’t necessary for the documentation, but I have it. Would you like me to put it up? A pause. Just a moment. That won’t be necessary, Hollis said. No, Ethan agreed. It won’t. And he moved to the next question. He couldn’t see Victoria’s face directly from the podium, but when the Q&A ended and the moderator called time and the room began to move, he saw her in his peripheral vision standing with her arms crossed, talking to Marcus Webb in a low voice.

And Webb was shaking his head slowly, and whatever she was saying to him, Webb appeared to be listening to it with the expression of a man being told something he already knew, but had hoped not to confront yet. Doctor Ash found him at the edge of the room as it was clearing, shaking hands with the people who came up, the curious ones, a few journalists with voice recorders, two collectors who pressed business cards on him with a force that suggested urgency.

That was well done, she said when the crowd had thinned enough to speak normally. It wasn’t designed to be impressive, he said. It was designed to be complete. I know, she said. That’s why it was impressive. He found Frank Dryer near the back doors. The old man looked tired from the drive and from whatever he was feeling, which Ethan could see was complex.

The particular exhaustion of someone who has been carrying a weight for a long time and is now watching it be set down by someone else. “You okay?” Ethan asked. “I’m old,” Frank said. “Everything is a lot, but yes.” He put his hand briefly on Ethan’s shoulder in the way of someone who has more to say than they’re able to say it. Gerald would have.

He stopped. I know. Ethan said. Frank nodded. I’m going to drive back tonight. My back can’t take another hotel mattress. Drive safe. Always. He shook his hand and moved toward the door. And Ethan watched him go and felt briefly the weight of all the years that had accumulated in this story before he’d ever been part of it.

He was packing his laptop when he became aware of someone standing nearby. He knew without looking from some quality of the stillness who it was. Mr. Walker, Victoria Sinclair said. He turned. She was standing a few feet away, having waited apparently until the other people had cleared out. She had her hands in the pockets of her jacket and her expression was the expression of someone who is accustomed to controlling the terms of conversations and has recognized that this particular conversation needs to operate on different terms. Miss

Sinclair, he said, “Your presentation was thorough.” “Thank you.” A pause. She looked at the screen at the front of the room, which still had his last slide visible. The factory letter, the specific passage. I want to ask you something and I want to ask it plainly, please. The documentation that was taken from your workshop, do you have reason to believe my company was involved in that? He looked at her directly.

Do you have reason to believe your company wasn’t? She held his look without flinching. I have reason to believe my company’s process was clean. I also have reason to believe. She stopped, started again. I’ve become aware of a relationship between a consultant we used and another party that I wasn’t aware of at the time of the assessment.

I can’t tell you more than that, but I want you to know that I’m aware of it. He put his laptop in the bag, zipped it. What does that mean for the assessment? It means the assessment may have been made in circumstances that weren’t fully disclosed to me. She said it like it cost her something, which he suspected it did. And if that’s the case, a pause.

Then I need to reconsider some of what I concluded. He looked at her. She was not someone who said that kind of thing easily. He could see it in the way she was standing, the slight stiffness of it, the effort of a person who had built a professional identity on the bedrock of her own judgment, acknowledging that her judgment had been compromised.

“I’m not asking for an apology,” he said. I’m not offering one yet, she said, which was more honest than an apology would have been. I’m telling you that I’m going to do my own work on this separately from whatever process the industry convenes, and I would appreciate the opportunity to do that. He thought about Ma’s voice on the phone.

Don’t let them make you feel stupid. He thought about Gerald Callaway, who had kept something safe for 40 years against the institutional pressure that wanted it erased. He thought about what it meant to let someone in who had previously shut the door and whether that was wisdom or weakness, and how much the difference between the two depended on the person asking.

“The car is still on the property,” he said. “I’ll give you access.” She nodded once, not a grateful nod. A professional one, which was the right kind. “Thank you,” she said. “Don’t thank me yet,” he said. “It came out without much planning. Find what’s there and tell the truth about it. That’s all I’m asking. She left. He stood in the empty room for a moment, the screen still glowing at the front with its fragment of 40-year-old evidence.

The conference noise coming through the walls from the floors above and below muffled and distant. His phone buzzed. Maya, how did it go? He typed back. It went three dots. Then that’s cryptic. He picked up his bag, walked to the door. “I’ll tell you everything when I’m home,” he typed. “I promise.” He meant it.

He walked out of the room and down the corridor toward the elevators, past the exhibition floor with its cars under their theatrical lights, past the lobbies and the name badges and the long job titles. and he thought about the drive home. The two-lane roads flanked by Springfield Fields. The tick in the valve train that he still hadn’t fixed.

👉 [Tap here for the Next Part ] 👈