Doris went back inside. He sat back on his heels and stared at the new porch board and thought not for the first time that sometimes the most important things people said to you were the ones they delivered and then walked away from not waiting for a response, not asking for acknowledgement, just setting the truth down like a tool you were going to need later. He finished the Henderson porch by 9:15 and drove directly to the farmhouse. Emily's car was already there. He found her inside in the kitchen standing at the counter with her phone pressed to her ear, her back to the door.
He could hear from her tone before he heard her words that the call was not a comfortable one. "Gerald, I understand your concern," she was saying in the voice she used when she was managing something she found deeply irritating. "But I need you to be specific. What exactly did Richard show you?" Marcus stopped in the doorway. He could have backed out quietly.
He didn't. Emily turned and saw him. She held up one finger. "Give me a minute and turned back to the window." "A document is not evidence," she said, clipped and precise. "A document is a document.
I want to know who sourced it when it was compiled and why it came through Richard's office instead of going through proper channels." A pause. Gerald, I'm not being defensive. I'm being correct. Those are different things. another pause longer. Fine, I'll call you this afternoon.
She hung up. She set the phone on the counter and pressed both palms flat against the surface and breathed once deliberately. Richard went to the board, Marcus said. She turned to Gerald Marsh, who is technically on the board, but is more specifically my father's oldest friend and the person Richard calculated would carry it to my father with the most damage. She looked at Marcus steadily.
He compiled a document about your time at Brentwell. He reframed everything, made it look like you were party to the misconduct, not the person who reported it. I know, Marcus said. Emily blinked. You know, I know how it would be framed.
I've thought about it. It's not hard to take what actually happened and flip the perspective on it. I was inside the company. I had access to the reports. If you ignore the part where I resigned and reported it, the rest of it looks different.
Richard ignored the part where you resigned and reported it. Of course he did. She looked at him with an expression. He was getting better at reading the one where she was recalibrating, where she'd come in expecting to deliver news and found out he was already ahead of it. Why didn't you tell me?
Tell me, she said. Tell you what, that this was coming. Because I didn't know exactly how it would come, Marcus said. I knew something was coming. I could feel it.
He set his work bag down and looked at her directly. Emily, I want to ask you something, and I need you to answer it honestly. She met his eyes. All right. Does any part of you, even a small part, even the part you'd never say out loud, does any part of you wonder if they might be right?
The farmhouse was very still. Emily held his gaze without flinching. "No," she said. You sure, Marcus? Her voice was quiet and entirely certain.
I made three phone calls to Brentwell. I spoke to people who were there. I read the resignation letter you filed, which is a matter of public record in the construction licensing board. I know what happened. She paused.
I'm someone who checks. It's the only thing I know how to do. When someone tells me a story about another person, I check. He breathed, something in his chest unclenched. He hadn't realized how tightly he'd been holding it.
"Okay," he said. "Okay," she said. Then her phone rang again. She looked at the screen. Her face shifted.
"It's my father," she said. She answered it. Marcus watched her face as she listened. He couldn't hear Henry's voice, only the murmur of it steady, measured, unhurried. Emily's expression moved through three different things in 30 seconds.
Surprise, something that might have been relief and then a sharp focused attention that he recognized from the way she walked a construction problem. He has the footage, she said. A pause from the equipment yard. Another pause. Dad, how do you have?
She stopped, listened. Something crossed her face that was almost a laugh and wasn't quite. Of course you own it. Of course you do. She closed her eyes briefly.
When? A pause. Tomorrow. All right, I'll be there. She hung up.