"Your team has had three weeks. Eleanor's voice was quiet, but it carried like a blade. "I gave you two factory engineers. I gave you a deadline. And I walk in here to find the same car on the same lift with the same hood open.
She paused. "What exactly am I paying you for, Victoria?" Victoria's hands trembled behind her back. She clasped them together to hide it.
"The powertrain issue is more complex than we initially—" "I heard something interesting when I walked in." Eleanor turned and looked directly at Fletcher. "This young man said he knows what's wrong with my car."
The showroom held its breath.
Victoria almost laughed. "Mrs. Ashford, with all due respect, this is a trespasser. He walked in off the street. He has no credentials, no training, no business being anywhere near your vehicle."
Eleanor studied Fletcher for a long moment. His stained jacket, his worn boots, his steady eyes. "What's your name?" she asked. "Fletcher Caine, ma'am."
"And you said the problem is the relay cluster?" "Yes, ma'am. The ECU firmware is sending conflicting signals to the hybrid relay. The system can't sync because the controller protocols don't match. It's a software mismatch, not a hardware failure."
Eleanor tilted her head. "How do you know that?"
"I heard it. The relay whine. It's a known symptom. Pagani published a service bulletin about it in 2019."
Chad shifted uncomfortably behind the glass partition. He knew about that bulletin. He had read it. He had missed the connection.
Eleanor turned back to Victoria. "Let him try." Victoria's face went white. "Absolutely not. I will not let some random person off the street touch a $2.4 million car—"
"That is my car," Eleanor said. The temperature in the room seemed to drop. "My car. My money. My decision. And right now the only person in this building who has offered me an actual diagnosis, not an excuse, is this young man standing in front of me."
Victoria swallowed. Her eyes darted to Dale, to Chad, to the customers watching from the lounge. Everyone was watching. Two people had their phones out.
"If he damages it—" Victoria started. "Then I'll cover the cost," Eleanor said. "Every penny. But if he fixes it, Victoria, you and I are going to have a very different conversation."
The threat hung in the air like a guillotine waiting to drop. Victoria's mind was racing. She could refuse. She had every legal right to refuse. This was her dealership, her property, her rules.