Part 6:

How much bigger? I don’t know yet, but I’m going to find out. That night, a black sedan parked across from Ethan’s house. Two guys in suits sat inside. Security. Ethan didn’t like it, but he didn’t fight it either. He tucked Maya in, read her an extra story, and tried to pretend everything was normal. “Daddy,” she asked sleepily.

 “Yeah, Bug, why are those men outside?” “So much for pretending. They’re just making sure we’re safe.” Safe from what? Nothing you need to worry about. I promise. She looked at him with those serious eyes. You’d tell me if something was wrong, right? The lie caught in his throat. Yeah, I’d tell you. She smiled and closed her eyes.

 Ethan sat there until she fell asleep, then went to the kitchen and poured himself a drink he definitely needed. His phone buzzed, a text from an unknown number. You should have taken the deal. Ethan stared at it. Then he screenshotted it, forwarded it to Celeste and Rebecca Marsh and blocked the number.

 Outside, the security guys stayed put. Inside, Ethan sat at the kitchen table and wondered what the hell he’d gotten himself into. But he didn’t regret it. Not yet. People were dead. More people were in danger. And somewhere in the machinery of Celeste Motors, someone had made a choice to hide the truth. Ethan had spent 10 years documenting that truth.

 Now it was time to make sure it couldn’t be buried again. The threatening text wasn’t the last one. Over the next week, they came sporadically, different numbers each time. You’re making a mistake. Think about your daughter. This won’t end well for you. Ethan forwarded every single one to Rebecca Marsh and kept a separate folder of screenshots.

 The security team outside his house changed shifts every 12 hours. Different faces, but the same watchful presence. Maya asked about them twice more before she stopped asking. Kids were adaptable like that. They accepted the strange as normal faster than adults ever could. On Thursday, Rebecca Marsh finally showed up in person.

 She arrived in a rental sedan dressed in a navy suit that looked like it had been through a long day. She was younger than Ethan expected from her voice, maybe 35, with sharp eyes and the kind of tired that came from too many late nights reviewing depositions. Mr. Cross. She shook his hand in the garage. We need to talk. So talk.

 She glanced around the shop somewhere private. He led her to the back room. She stopped in the doorway the same way Celeste had, taking in the shelves and files and bins of broken parts. But where Celeste had looked shocked, Rebecca looked energized. “This is incredible,” she said quietly. “It’s 10 years of problems nobody wanted to fix.

 It’s also the most comprehensive product liability evidence I’ve seen in 15 years of practice. She walked to the timeline on the wall. Can I photograph this? Go ahead. She pulled out her phone and started taking pictures. The depositions start next week. Celeste Motors, corporate council, several executives, some engineers.

 I need you to walk me through the key failures, the ones that connect directly to known accidents. Ethan pulled out a different notebook. This one with red tabs marking specific entries. I cross-referenced my records with NHTSA reports. Found 47 crashes that match failure patterns I documented. He flipped it open. This one from 2019.

Woman in Ohio. TC4471B tensioner failed at highway speed. Engine seized. She hit a guardrail. Fractured spine. Rebecca wrote quickly. You have the VIN? Yeah. And photos of the part when it came through my shop 6 months before the crash. Customer complained about engine noise. I documented it.

 Ordered a replacement tensioner. They couldn’t afford the repair, so they drove it anyway. You remember the customer? I remember all of them. Ethan’s voice was flat. Sarah Mitchell worked at the grocery store. Two kids. She came in crying because she knew something was wrong, but didn’t have 800 bucks for the fix. Rebecca looked up from her notes.

 Did you tell her it was dangerous? I told her the engine was at risk. I didn’t tell her it could kill her because I didn’t want to scare her and I thought he stopped. I thought maybe it’d be fine. Maybe she’d get lucky. She didn’t. No, she didn’t. They went through 17 more cases like that.

 Each one had a name, a face, a story. Some Ethan had worked on directly. Others he’d only learned about later, cross-referencing his failure data with accident reports. By the time they finished, it was past 7. Rebecca closed her notebook. This is going to be hard. They’re going to question your motives, your methods, your memory.

 They’ll try to paint you as someone with an axe to grind. Let them. They’ll bring up the fact that you were fired. They’ll suggest you’ve been hoarding evidence for a future lawsuit. I wasn’t fired. I was laid off. And I’m not suing anyone. Not yet. But when this goes public, every plaintiff’s attorney in the country is going to want to talk to you. She paused.

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