"My chest feels funny," he whispered. "And my arm. But they said I'm okay." Vanessa looked at the doctor standing nearby.
The physician explained that Tommy was being evaluated for smoke exposure, bruising, and a possible injury to his wrist. He was stable and talking, though they would continue monitoring him. She asked who had rescued him, and Tommy pointed weakly through the curtain. "The mechanic," he said. "The one who taught me about trucks."
"What mechanic?" Vanessa asked. Tommy studied her face as though surprised she had forgotten.
"Eli Carter. From the open house. He was fired, remember?" The words reached her before she could protect herself from them. She had approved hundreds of personnel decisions in the last year, and she remembered the name only after Tommy said it twice.
She crossed into the adjacent bay, pulled the curtain, and saw the man she had dismissed. After that came the conversation about the truck, the warning, and the manager whose word she had accepted. It was a conversation she would replay for months, always returning to the difference between what Eli asked of her and what she had offered him. He asked that a dangerous product be examined. She had offered him the kind of silence powerful people mistake for closure.
After Vanessa left Eli's bay, Captain Grant found her in the corridor staring at a vending machine she had no intention of using. "I want to be clear about something," he told her. "Mr. Carter's observations are valuable, but they are not the findings of the investigation. We're documenting the scene and arranging a proper examination of the vehicle. I need your company to preserve its records and cooperate without trying to decide the outcome in advance."
"Of course," Vanessa said. The words came automatically, and Grant waited until she met his eyes.
"Mrs. Ward," he continued, "I've watched a lot of people promise cooperation while asking someone on the phone to clear the wreckage. Don't do that. Whatever the truth is, your son deserves it." Vanessa nodded again, this time meaning it.
She called Priya and ordered an immediate preservation notice for maintenance records, work orders, internal messages, and vehicle movement logs associated with the red R4. Priya asked whether she should contact Ron. Vanessa hesitated. She had contacted him first for nearly every serious production question for the past decade.
"Not to manage the records," she said. "Tell legal to preserve them centrally. And don't let anyone overwrite or move anything until the investigators tell us what they need."
Ron was calling before she finished speaking. His name flashed on her screen in the corridor, accompanied by the familiar photo of him smiling at a company awards dinner. Vanessa answered. "Tommy's okay," she said before he could ask.
"They're examining him now." Ron let out a practiced sigh. "Thank God. Vanessa, I've got a team working on the accident. I'm hearing the driver lost control in the rain. We'll handle the insurance and the public statement."
"Who authorized the truck?" she asked. Ron paused only slightly. "Standard demonstration approval. Everything signed off. A weather-related crash, as far as we know."