No hangar.
He lay still.
The apartment was dark.
Nora slept in the next room.
One of the tree lights had been left on overnight, and soft colors reflected against the living room wall.
Caleb's phone showed twenty-three missed calls.
He sat at the kitchen table and listened to one voicemail.
Malcolm Reeves.
"Caleb, this is Malcolm. I understand you may not want to hear from anyone at Northstar right now. I don't blame you. But I am asking for thirty minutes. Not to pressure you. Not to ask you to return. I need to understand what happened from you directly, and I believe you deserve to hear what we have found. Call me whenever you're ready."
Caleb replayed it.
Then another voicemail.
Amelia Grant.
"Caleb, engineering completed the first stage of the inspection. You were right to ground the aircraft. I can't discuss everything on voicemail, but I want you to know that."
He stopped listening.
You were right.
The words should have felt good.
They didn't.
Caleb thought about the morning he had heard the metallic tick.
He imagined signing the aircraft off.
Imagined the jet leaving.
Imagined himself learning later that the damage had progressed in flight.
He closed his eyes.
That was why mechanics had rules.
Not because rules made work inconvenient.
Because human beings were excellent at convincing themselves that unlikely meant impossible when schedules became expensive enough.
Caleb called Malcolm at eight.
They agreed to meet at ten in a conference room away from the hangar.
Caleb dropped Nora with his neighbor, Mrs. Alvarez, who watched her during school breaks.
Before leaving, Nora looked him over.
"Why are you wearing your nice shirt?"
"Meeting."
"Job meeting?"
"Maybe."
"Are you getting your job back?"
"I don't know."
She considered.
"Do you want it back?"
Caleb stopped.
That was the question nobody else had asked.
"I don't know."
Nora nodded as if that were acceptable.
"Okay."
He kissed her forehead.
At Northstar, Caleb entered through the administrative building instead of the hangar.
That alone felt wrong.
The receptionist knew him.
She stood.
"Caleb."
He smiled faintly.
"Morning, Dana."
"I'm sorry."
"Thank you."
She looked toward the corridor.
"They're waiting."
The conference room held Malcolm Reeves, Amelia Grant, Caroline West from the board, and an outside attorney named Steven Hale.
No Graham.
Caleb noticed immediately.
Malcolm stood.
"Thank you for coming."
Caleb remained near the door.
"I have about an hour."
He had nowhere else to be.
He needed the boundary anyway.
"Understood."
They sat.
Malcolm did not begin with corporate language.
That surprised Caleb.
"We failed you yesterday."
Caleb looked at him.
Malcolm continued.
"I don't mean only that Mr. Voss may have retaliated against you. That investigation is ongoing."
He folded his hands.
"I mean the company allowed a safety concern and an employment decision involving the person who raised that concern to move through overlapping leadership without independent review."
Caleb said, "Graham knew the inspection findings before he fired me."
"Yes."
"Did HR?"
Steven answered.
"They knew an aircraft discrepancy existed. They were not given the full chronology."
Caleb looked at Vivian's empty chair in his memory.
"So he told them restructuring."
"Yes."
"Was there a restructuring?"
Malcolm paused.
"Not one eliminating your role."
Caleb laughed once.
It contained no humor.
Caroline West spoke.
"Mr. Voss proposed broader labor reductions several weeks ago."
Caleb looked at her.
"Approved?"
"No."
"Scheduled?"
"No."
"So yesterday he fired one person."
"Yes."
"The person who grounded his important airplane."
Nobody corrected him.