By Christmas Eve, Evan had spoken to thirty-one employees across calibration, assembly, shipping, and the warehouse. Some had contacted him, having heard from Curtis that he was trying to understand the certificates. Others had approached him directly after he asked for permission to compare their payroll envelopes. He recorded only the details each person agreed to share, and he marked disputed amounts separately instead of pretending that the total was complete.
Marlene Park had worked in shipping for nineteen years. She showed Evan a photograph of her envelope on her kitchen counter, with the certificates arranged in a careful row beside a card from her youngest granddaughter. Her husband had recently reduced his hours after an injury, and they had planned to use her pay for a new refrigerator. "I thought I was missing something obvious," she said. "Everybody up front acted like we ought to be grateful."
Hollis Brooks had a different story. He had tried to ask Preston whether the certificates were taxable as wages and how the values would be reported, only to be told to direct all inquiries to HR. HR had referred him back to finance. "I've been sent around that building three times," he said. "Nobody's told me where the cash went."
Evan listened, took notes, and repeated the same promise to each person. He would not use anyone's name publicly without consent, and he would not claim that an employee's account proved anything beyond what that employee could verify. He encouraged them to preserve pay statements, certificates, dates, and written communications. He did not ask anyone to steal information or access systems outside their job duties.
Sophie found him at the kitchen table on Christmas Eve with a growing stack of folders and a plate of cookies she had baked herself. The overhead light was on, the Christmas tree glowed beside the window, and the house smelled faintly of cinnamon. She set the plate near his elbow and looked at the names written on a legal pad.
"You have a whole class of people on your homework," she said.
"Something like that."
"Are they all missing their pay?"
He nodded. Sophie pulled out a chair, then seemed to reconsider. "You can't fix thirty-one families by yourself."
"No," Evan said. "But I can tell the right people what happened."
"And what if they get mad?"
He looked at her for a long moment. "Then I have to make sure everything I tell them is true."
They wrapped the few gifts they had bought and watched an old Christmas movie without discussing the factory again. When Sophie fell asleep on the couch, Evan carried a blanket over and turned off the television. He stood for a moment listening to the quiet house. At work, his signature meant that a reading had been checked against a standard. At home, he understood that Sophie relied on a similar assurance when he told her a promise was something he intended to keep.
By morning, the decision had become simple, though not easy. He would give Blackridge one more opportunity to correct the payroll arrangement directly. If management refused, he would send the evidence to the independent people already responsible for examining the company's financial representations. He was not trying to destroy a business. He was trying to prevent it from signing a claim it could not honestly support.