Her name was Margaret Eleanor Hale. Fifty-two years earlier, she and her husband had sold the first car ever delivered by the company now called Hale Automotive Group. She owned the controlling interest in every Crestline store in the region, and until that morning, she had believed the company still understood why she and Walter had founded it.
But Margaret had not come to make a speech about ownership. She had come to find out what happened to people who could not make one.
Four days before that humiliating exchange, Margaret had been sitting at her breakfast table with her grandson, Caleb Hale, while rain tapped softly against the kitchen windows. The house was large by ordinary standards, but its kitchen remained surprisingly small. Walter had disliked rooms that made people feel far apart. Even after the company became successful enough to purchase any building they wanted, he insisted on keeping the original kitchen cabinets and the round oak table where their children had eaten breakfast.
Caleb had placed a stack of reports beside her tea. At thirty-six, he had his grandfather's patient eyes and his mother's habit of arranging everything in exact lines before explaining it. He worked in the family company's strategy office, but Margaret had never allowed him to assume that being born a Hale entitled him to run anything. His first summer job had been cleaning grease traps in the service department. His second had been answering phones in the parts warehouse.
"You asked me to bring the customer complaints," he said. "I found fourteen formal ones from Crestline's flagship location this year. There may be more that never reached the database."
Margaret adjusted her glasses. "Fourteen about what?"
"Mostly the same issue. Older customers being discouraged from entering, people told they couldn't qualify for financing before anybody checked, customers who arrived on foot being turned away. One complaint came from a veteran who was told the used-car section was somewhere else, even though he had asked about a specific new model."
"What happened to the complaints?"
Caleb hesitated. "Store management closed eleven of them. Three are still unresolved."
She kept her face still, but he had known his grandmother long enough to recognize the change. Her fingers stopped moving against the handle of the teacup. The little crease between her brows deepened. It was the expression she wore when she found a wrong number in a budget, an unexplained delay in a hospital donation, or a small act of cruelty dressed up as efficiency.
"Did Dana see them?" she asked.
"The reports went to her office. Some were handled by Brad Keller first, and several were labeled customer misunderstandings. Dana says she can't establish a pattern without witnesses."
"Fourteen people made themselves uncomfortable enough to complain. That is a pattern of something." Margaret put the page down. "Whether it's exactly what they say is another question. But we have to ask it."