“That was my father.”
Charlotte raised her eyes.
“You’re Daniel Carter’s son?”
“Yes.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty.”
She calculated.
“You were ten.”
Evan’s expression changed.
“Ten when what?”
Charlotte looked at him.
“When he died.”
The lobby became very quiet.
Evan took the résumé from her.
“You knew him.”
It was not a question.
Charlotte took a breath.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He worked here.”
“I know that.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
“You knew?”
“My father never hid where he worked.”
“He just didn’t talk about how it ended.”
Charlotte looked toward the assistants.
“Give me a moment.”
Nobody argued.
Her staff moved away.
The receptionist suddenly became fascinated with her monitor.
Charlotte lowered her voice.
“Why didn’t you mention him in your application?”
Evan looked confused.
“Why would I?”
“Because he was one of the most important engineers this company ever had.”
“That isn’t what the internet says.”
The sentence landed harder than Charlotte expected.
Evan continued.
“The internet says he stole proprietary engine technology and sold it.”
Charlotte did not answer.
Evan’s jaw tightened.
“My father doesn’t get me hired.”
“He doesn’t get me turned away either.”
“I came here for a mechanic job.”
Charlotte stared at him.
There was something in his face.
Not Daniel exactly.
The eyes, perhaps.
Daniel Carter’s eyes had always looked as though he was one question ahead of everyone else in the room.
Evan looked toward the front doors.
“If the position’s filled, I understand.”
“It isn’t.”
He looked back.
Charlotte hesitated.
Then:
“Come with me.”
The receptionist looked up.
Evan did not move.
“Where?”
“Prototype engineering.”
“I applied for service technician.”
“I know.”
“I’m not an engineer.”
Charlotte turned toward the private corridor.
“Neither was your father when he started.”
That got Evan moving.
They passed through secured doors into a part of the building visitors rarely saw.
The lobby’s polished silence disappeared.
The air changed first.
Metal.
Rubber.
Coolant.
Electrical insulation.
Machined aluminum.
Then sound.
Impact guns.
Cooling fans.
Rolling carts.
Diagnostic equipment.
Technicians speaking over one another.
Evan’s posture changed almost immediately.
Charlotte noticed.
The nervous man from the lobby disappeared.
His attention moved to machinery.
That she recognized.
They descended two floors.
Prototype Garage Three occupied nearly half an acre beneath the corporate complex. Vehicles stood beneath bright LED arrays while engineers moved among laptops, insulated tools, diagnostic carts, and partially disassembled battery modules.
Behind a glass partition sat Project Aster.
Black.
Low.
Wide.
Still unfinished enough that sections of its interior trim had not been installed.
The hood was raised.
A charging cable connected to the left quarter panel.
Six engineers stood around it.
One of them turned as Charlotte approached.
Marcus Hail was forty-five, Bennett Automotive’s senior electrical integration engineer, and one of the few people in the company who would tell Charlotte directly when she was wrong.
He glanced at Evan.
Then the toolbox.
“Who’s this?”
“Evan Carter.”
Marcus’s expression flickered.