It was that face he thought of when he went to sleep, not the money and not the mansion. He thought too of the woman who had treated him as a suspect and wondered whether living behind high gates eventually made it impossible to imagine a person approaching without wanting something. Claire would have had an answer. She always had answers for questions about people, even when she was wrong, and he missed arguing with her about them.
Victoria's next morning began with six conference calls and a breakfast she forgot to eat. During the first call, an investor praised her ability to cut unnecessary cost from underperforming operations. During the second, a board member suggested closing two domestic workshops and moving production to a supplier whose labor practices had not yet been fully audited. By the third call, someone had congratulated her on her extraordinary judgment so many times that the words had lost meaning.
"Before you approve the supplier transition," Ethan said afterward, "the quality team has raised a concern. They want another site inspection."
"Do they have evidence?"
"Enough that they don't want to sign the report yet."
Victoria was reaching for her next folder when she remembered Daniel standing in wet boots beside her front door. He had known what he believed, and he had been willing to disappoint a billionaire to act on it. "Then they can have the inspection," she said. "Nobody signs off on something they don't trust."
Ethan looked up, surprised. Victoria noticed and almost asked what was so remarkable about the instruction. Instead she turned the page, wondering how often the people around her had waited for permission to be honest.
The thought stayed with her through the week. She found herself catching her own reflection in elevator doors, remembering the moment Daniel refused her check, and asking why she had assumed money was the only meaningful form of gratitude. She tried to dismiss it as professional curiosity. She had once lost an entire weekend examining the background of a potential supplier because a small number in a financial report did not make sense. Finding out what motivated Daniel Brooks could simply be another exercise in due diligence.
On Thursday she asked Ethan to learn what he could about him. "Public information only," she specified. "No intrusion into private accounts, no contacting his neighbors, and absolutely no one showing up at his home. I don't want him made uncomfortable."
"May I ask why?" Ethan said.
Victoria regarded the ring on her desk. She had started carrying it in a small pouch in her handbag's secure inner compartment, away from the seam she had already sent to be repaired. "I want to understand why a man who could obviously use the money walked away from it," she said. "I suspect the answer matters more than I know."
Two days later, Ethan returned with a short report. Daniel was a licensed small-business owner with a workshop registered to his home address, no public scandals, no known criminal history, and an income that varied with the furniture commissions he completed. He drove an old pickup, owned a modest house with a small remaining mortgage, and had not pursued an executive career in more than a decade. The report contained no spectacular secret, which only made Victoria read it twice.