Because you keep looking like the answer is yes, Patricia said, which is the correct answer. She pushed open the door. Come on. The agent assigned to them was named Carver. He's special agent Daniel Carver.
He's mid-40s. He's compact build. The kind of face that had been professionally expressionless for so long that it had become his natural resting state. He shook Emily's hand with the efficiency of a man who shook many hands and remembered none of them. And then he looked at the binder she set on the conference table, and something in his efficiency briefly shifted.
That's the original, he said. Original and complete, Patricia said. Chain of custody documentation is in the front sleeve. Emily has maintained these records since her father's death 14 months ago. The 2019 entries are entirely in Walter Carter's hand.
Carver pulled the binder toward him. He opened it to the front. He began reading with the stillness of someone trained to extract information from documents while giving nothing away about what the information was doing to him. Emily sat across the table and watched him read and said nothing, which was what Patricia had told her to do. And which was easy because Emily had grown up in a garage where you didn't talk while someone was concentrating on something that mattered.
Carver stopped at a page. He went back. He read something twice. He looked up at Emily. "Bye," he said. "
Your father flagged this." 14 months before I got the letter, Emily said. He asked Gerald Simmons about it twice. Gerald called it standard commercial language both times. You were present for those conversations.
Both of them. Emily said, "I can tell you exactly what Gerald said, the words he used, the order he said them in. I've got a good memory for what people say when they're talking about my father's garage. Carver held her gaze for a moment. Then he looked at Patricia.
The brake line. Patricia produced the labeled evidence bag from her briefcase. Carver leaned forward and looked at it without touching it. The way you look at something you want to handle carefully. The mechanic who identified the cut is sitting across from you.
Patricia said. Emily found it during a routine post-crash inspection. The work order is in the binder. Dated timed sign with a specific notation she made when she discovered the damage. She paused.
Emily is the one who preserved it. Carver looked at Emily with the first real expression she'd seen from him. Not warmth exactly, but the specific alertness of a person recalibrating. You knew what you were looking at. He said, I've been reading brake systems since I was 14.
Emily said. That cut was deliberate. The angle, the depth, the placement. Whoever did it understood exactly what they were doing. They wanted it to fail at speed, not in the parking lot.
Carver wrote something down. Then Emily told them about the phone call. Richard Phelps, the smooth voice, the question about whether she had counsel. She She told him the exact words she'd used in response and the exact pauses that had followed. Carver wrote everything down and his face remained professionally neutral and she had the sense watching him that the pauses in the Phelps call had told him something specific about where Cross's operation currently understood itself to be Phelps called after Patricia had been retained.
Carver said After Marcus Webb identified the Valley Assessment connection within 3 hours of it, Patricia said. Carver set his pen down. He looked at the binder. He looked at the evidence bag. He looked at the 31 pages of compiled documentation Marcus had prepared which Patricia had also included in the briefcase.
Counselor, he said, give me 10 minutes. He left the room. Emily looked at Patricia. That's good. Patricia said quietly.
When they leave to make a call, it means they found what they needed and they're calling someone who needs to know. How do you know he's making a call and not just stepping out? Emily said. Because he took the binder with him. Patricia said.
Emily looked at the table. The binder was gone. She hadn't seen him pick it up. He's good. She said, "He's very good," Patricia said.
Which is what we needed. Carver came back in 14 minutes. He set the binder on the table. He sat down. He put his hands flat on the table in the way of someone about to say something they want anchored. "
Miss Carter," he said. What I'm about to tell you is preliminary and subject to change, but I want you to understand the current position. The Valley Assessment Incorporation connection Marcus Webb identified we've been aware of a related entity structure for approximately 6 weeks in connection with a separate investigation in another district. What you've brought us today connects those structures in a way that completes a link we were missing. He paused.
You didn't just bring us your case. You brought us the piece of a larger case that we didn't have. Emily sat very still. How much larger? Patricia said, significantly, Carver said, I can't give you specifics yet.
What I can tell you is that we are going to move on this and we are going to move quickly and the first thing I need is an emergency motion in federal court. He looked at Patricia. Can you have an emergency injunction application ready by end of business today? I need the default proceedings against all 11 businesses halted while we work. I can have it ready by 3.
Patricia said, "Do it." Carver said, " "He looked at Emily. "Your garage is not closing. I want to be clear about that. Whatever happens in the next 72 hours, that property is not changing hands."
Emily looked at him. "My father built it." She said, "That was never negotiable." Carver looked at her for a moment. "I understand."