"I understand. I can repair high-voltage cooling equipment, diagnose electrical faults, and work with older drivetrain assemblies as well as new systems. Your listing says the division needs somebody who knows how machines fail in the real world. That's what I've spent the last twelve years learning."
"Sir, I can't help you without an appointment."
He looked at the clock behind her. Nine seventeen. His daughter Lily's school bus was due at three forty, and he had promised he would be home before it arrived. He had made promises before that he had been forced to break, not because he wanted to but because every hour of work meant the difference between keeping the lights on and losing them. He was determined not to make another promise casually.
"Then I'll leave this," he said, sliding the folder closer. "Could you at least put it in the hiring manager's hands?"
Melissa opened her mouth to give him the same answer. Before she could, an elevator sounded behind them, and the people near the coffee station moved instinctively away from the middle of the lobby. Charlotte Bennett emerged with three assistants walking half a pace behind her. One held a telephone against his ear, another was studying production forecasts on a tablet, and the third carried a thin portfolio of investor documents. Charlotte herself wore a charcoal suit, dark heels, and the strained expression of somebody who had spent the morning delivering bad news without being allowed to sound worried.
At thirty-eight, she controlled a manufacturing group whose name appeared on vehicles, factories, and investment portfolios across three continents. Her father had made the family wealthy; Charlotte had made the company larger, faster, and more willing to gamble on the future. Newspapers described her as disciplined, brilliant, demanding, and almost impossible to surprise. Very few people knew that she had woken at four thirty that morning to the news that the company's most important electric performance prototype had failed during a private road test.
An investor demonstration was scheduled for one that afternoon. Two international manufacturing partners were already traveling to headquarters, and the chairman of the board had called three times to ask whether the launch date was in danger. Charlotte had told each caller that her engineers were investigating. It was true, but it was not reassuring, and she had begun to hate the sound of her own careful answers.
She might have passed Evan without looking at him if the corner of his resume had not caught on the folder. Several pages slipped loose, fluttered toward the floor, and landed in the path of Charlotte's shoes. Evan bent quickly to gather them, embarrassed by the sudden attention. Charlotte glanced down, saw the typed name near the top of the first page, and stopped so abruptly that the assistant behind her almost walked into her shoulder.
EVAN CARTER.