Owen felt heat rise behind his ears, but he kept his hands at his sides. The price of the fitting did not embarrass him; his mistake was simple and documented. What hurt was watching a room full of competent people taught that years of conscientious work could be erased by a small administrative error. He could sense Eli shifting beside him, preparing to answer in the way young men often did when anger reached them before judgment.
Owen touched Eli's forearm with two fingers. Then he looked directly at Victoria and said, "You can replace my position, ma'am. Just make sure the next person reads the inspection reports."
He had intended the statement as an instruction to protect drivers. Victoria heard it as a challenge before witnesses, and her face tightened at the sound of someone behind the tool crib trying not to laugh. "Effective immediately," she said, "you're no longer employed here." Graham slowly closed the laptop.
Dale opened his mouth, saw Victoria turn toward him, and closed it again. The meeting had not finished, but its purpose had changed from reviewing expenditures to removing a man who had refused to accept public humiliation in the expected way. Security arrived before anyone had told Owen what the company's termination procedure actually required. One guard was a man he had helped jump-start a car two winters earlier.
The guard kept his eyes lowered while Graham explained that Owen's badge must be surrendered at once and his personal tools collected under supervision by the next business day. Owen looked past him toward the long row of cabinets containing thirty-one years' worth of wrenches, sockets, specialty fittings, and tools he had bought whenever he could afford them. Some were engraved with his initials, some with the name of the man who had given them to him. The idea that those tools could be treated like suspicious property hurt more sharply than Victoria's dismissal.
"Can I take my notebook?" he asked. Graham seemed to consider whether the question was another attempt at defiance. "Any company records stay here," he said. Owen glanced toward Dale, then at the men who would soon be working through the inspections without him.
He opened the notebook to the last pages, held it for a moment, and gave it to Dale. "The inspections still need finishing," he said quietly. "Start with 381 and 409. The lot markings are inside the back cover."
Dale accepted the notebook with both hands. He looked as if he wanted to speak, but the words stayed behind his teeth. Their friendship had survived illnesses, shift changes, arguments about football, and the entire history of Blackwell's expansion. Now a few seconds of silence placed something between them that neither knew how to move. Owen waited long enough for Dale to say something, then nodded once and turned away. He placed the chipped badge on the folding table, its photograph showing a younger man with dark hair and a face uncreased by twenty-three years of sleepless nights.