“And?”
“That regulators investigated you.”
“They did.”
Coulter stared.
Adeline looked up.
“They investigated the company because of me.”
“What happened?”
She was quiet for a long time.
Then motioned toward the chair.
Coulter sat.
Adeline folded her hands.
“I was operations director.”
“Four plants.”
“Brake components.”
“ABS assemblies.”
“Hydraulic hardware.”
“Supplier quality.”
Coulter’s eyebrows lifted.
“That’s not bookkeeping.”
“No.”
“How big?”
“About seven hundred people under operations I coordinated directly or indirectly.”
“And you ended up here.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Adeline looked at the desk.
“Because I found a batch of brake-pressure components that failed fatigue testing.”
“How many?”
“Thousands.”
“Shipped?”
“Some.”
Coulter’s expression changed.
“What did you do?”
“Stopped the line.”
“My vice president restarted it.”
“He said the failure rate was within statistical tolerance.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I documented it.”
“Reported internally.”
“Compliance.”
“Legal.”
“Nothing happened.”
“So I contacted the regulator.”
Coulter leaned back.
“That’s why they fired you.”
“Not immediately.”
“That would’ve been too obvious.”
“They reorganized.”
“My department disappeared.”
“Then reappeared three months later with a different title and someone else running it.”
Coulter swore softly.
Adeline continued.
“After that, interviews stopped.”
“I’d get to final rounds.”
“Then nothing.”
“One recruiter finally told me off the record that someone at Meridian was calling me ‘difficult,’ ‘disloyal,’ and ‘high risk.’”
“Can you prove it?”
“No.”
“Did you sue?”
“I spoke with an attorney.”
“It would’ve taken years.”
“Money.”
“Energy.”
“I had none left.”
Coulter looked at her.
“You were right?”
“The regulator eventually required a recall.”
“How many accidents?”
“None that we could prove were caused by the parts.”
“That was luck.”
“Yes.”
“And the people who pushed them out?”
“Still employed, last I checked.”
He sat silently.
Adeline’s voice became smaller.
“I did the right thing.”
“It cost me almost everything.”
“I don’t regret doing it.”
“But I understand if you don’t want the trouble attached to me.”
Coulter looked confused.
“What trouble?”
“Donovan’s using it.”
“He thinks if people doubt me, they’ll doubt your books.”
“Maybe the bank.”
“Customers.”
Coulter stood.
Adeline’s stomach tightened.
He walked toward the garage.
Picked up a wrench.
Then turned back.
“I trust you.”
That was all.
Adeline stared.
Coulter continued.
“You told me my business was bleeding when everybody else politely watched it die.”
“You found eighteen thousand dollars I was too buried to collect.”
“You sat in a bank and made Eleanor Pierce believe I knew what a quarterly statement was.”
Adeline almost smiled.
Coulter pointed the wrench toward her.
“And you stayed after I told you on day one that what I needed was a wife.”
“That still wasn’t your best moment.”
“No.”
“But I’m not firing you because Miles Donovan learned how gossip works.”
“I didn’t ask you not to fire me.”
“You were thinking it.”
She said nothing.
Coulter’s voice softened.
“In my experience, people who scream the loudest about someone else’s character usually don’t want anyone looking at theirs.”
Adeline felt something in her chest loosen.