Sophie waking to hear that he had not come home, and the thought frightened him more now than it had while the fire was in front of him. He sat with her on the sofa and told her what he could about helping Tommy, leaving out nothing essential but avoiding details that would burden her without giving her understanding.
"Was it scary?" she asked. "Yes," he answered. "Very." She stared at him.
"So you weren't brave?" Eli looked at the framed photograph of Natalie on the bookshelf. "I think bravery is being scared and still choosing something important," he said. "But it doesn't mean people should take unnecessary risks. Firefighters are trained for that work. I was lucky they arrived when they did."
Later that afternoon, Attorney Ruiz listened while Eli described the vehicle inspection, the termination, and the rescue. Her office occupied two rooms above a pharmacy, and she spoke with the unhurried precision of someone who had seen too many clients mistake promises for documents. She did not tell him they had a winning case. She asked for dates, copies of warnings, names of witnesses, and the exact words on the termination form.
"The first question is what records still exist," Ruiz told him. "The second is whether your employer had lawful grounds to terminate you after a protected safety report. The third is what, if anything, connects that report to this accident. Those are separate matters. We need to keep them separate until the evidence brings them together."
Eli felt unexpected relief. She was the first person since the fire who had made the problem sound like something that could be examined without declaring a conclusion in advance.
Ruiz advised him not to argue with Ron by telephone. She offered to send a preservation request and to contact the appropriate workplace safety authorities if the available information supported a report. Eli agreed. He also gave her the name of Teresa Cruz, the mechanic who had independently inspected the truck, though he hesitated before doing so. Teresa was raising two children and could not afford to lose her job.
"You can ask her what she's willing to say," Ruiz replied. "Don't pressure her. And don't promise confidentiality you can't control. Her choices belong to her."
Eli nodded. He had not expected the work of telling the truth to require so much patience. He had imagined, briefly, that once Vanessa knew about the report, the rest of it would become obvious. Instead, every answer seemed to create another necessary question.
At the factory, Vanessa was learning the same lesson from the other side of the executive desk. Priya had assembled an initial packet of records by morning, but several attachments were missing from the electronic maintenance folder. A report by Eli Carter dated thirty-one days before the fire was marked closed, with a management note reading NO FURTHER ACTION REQUIRED. The supporting photographs were linked to a storage location Priya could not access with her ordinary permissions.