“Yes.”
“She looks young.”
“She was.”
“Were you there?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I was little.”
“Little like me?”
“About your age.”
Lily nodded as though this solved something.
Evan continued staring at the key.
The next morning, Charlotte arrived before sunrise.
She had barely slept.
She had spent most of the night searching old company archives from home.
Daniel Carter.
Employment dates.
Patents.
Technical disclosures.
Engineering awards.
Then nothing.
The official corporate history jumped almost cleanly over his departure.
One old newspaper result described “allegations of proprietary technology theft involving a former Bennett engineer.”
No criminal charge.
No lawsuit she could find.
No public trial.
No formal retraction.
Just suspicion.
She remembered the night her father fired him.
Not everything.
Fragments.
Raised voices behind the door.
Daniel leaving Richard Bennett’s office carrying a cardboard file box.
Charlotte standing in the hallway.
Daniel looking at her.
His face pale with anger.
Then the sentence.
“Your father knows what really happened.”
Richard ordered security to escort Daniel out.
Charlotte asked her father what Daniel meant.
Richard said:
“He is angry because he was caught.”
She believed him.
For twenty years.
At 6:14 a.m., Charlotte entered Garage Three.
Only one bay was active.
Evan was already there.
He lay beneath a service vehicle, tightening a bracket.
Charlotte stopped.
“You start at eight.”
Evan slid out.
“I know.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“New job?”
“Rent.”
The honesty surprised her.
He stood.
She glanced at the canvas jacket.
Same one.
“You’re allowed to accept the uniform allowance.”
“I will.”
He reached into his pocket.
“I found something.”
The photograph.
Charlotte recognized it immediately.
Her breathing changed.
“That was the engineering awards dinner.”
“You remember?”
“Yes.”
“My father kept it.”
Evan pointed to the key.
“What is that?”
Charlotte looked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did he ever talk about you?”
Evan asked.
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
Evan hesitated.
“Sometimes.”
“What did he say?”
“That you asked better questions than most engineers.”
Charlotte almost smiled.
“He said that?”
“He also said you didn’t know when to stop asking them.”
“That sounds more accurate.”
Evan leaned against the workbench.
“He talked about your father more.”
Charlotte’s expression hardened.
“What did he say?”
“That he trusted him once.”
“Once?”
“Then he didn’t.”
Charlotte looked toward the empty garage.
“What else?”
Evan studied her.
“My father told me something before he died.”
“What?”
“If anyone ever told me he betrayed this company, I shouldn’t believe them.”
Charlotte went still.
“Did he explain?”
“No.”