Fitch had expected more push back or defensiveness or fear. He'd been doing this long enough to have a read on how people responded to pressure. And Marcus not giving him any of those options was making him recalibrate on the fly, which was exactly when people said things they'd meant to keep quiet. You don't even know what you walked into, Fitch said. Tell me.
Marcus said another pause. This one longer. You think Callaway is protecting you? She burns through coordinators. You're useful right now.
The second you're not, were you a limited partner in Trident and Pacific when they filed the civil suit? Marcus said the holding company, not your name. Silence, because the discovery documents from that case are public record, Marcus said. And I've got a text from an unsaved number that uses specific language about a project detail that was never reported publicly. I haven't done anything with either of those things yet.
The call ended. Marcus saved the recording, sat for a moment, then typed a message to Diane's personal email, not the work address, he called. I recorded it. Let me know how you want to proceed. Her reply came in 38 minutes.
Don't move yet. I need 3 days. Trust me. He looked at that last sentence for a while. Then he called Lily.
She answered on the second ring because she'd been waiting to tell him about the fractions test, which she had gotten a 92 on and she wanted to be the one to say it before Dana mentioned it first. 92, she said. And the two I lost was because I wrote the answer in the wrong box, not because I got it wrong. So, it's basically a 94. Graders don't grade basically.
He said, it's still good. It's great, bug. I told you the second explanation would land the denominator part. She said, "Once you said it twice, it made sense. Like the second time you said it with the pizza thing.
The pizza thing always works, Dad." Her voice shifted the way it did when she was about to say something she'd been turning over for a while. Is your job okay? He looked at the wall of the side office. Project timeline. Permit approvals.
A coffee ring on the lower edge from a cup he'd set there 3 weeks ago and kept meaning to wipe off. Job's fine, he said. Why? You sounded different last week on the Thursday call. Like you were thinking while you were talking.
He'd thought he'd covered it better than that. 7-year-olds were unreliable in every possible way except the way that mattered. I was working through something. He said, I think I've mostly got it mostly. Mostly is good for a Thursday, he said.
By next Saturday, it'll be all the way with pancakes. She said chocolate chip. He said already planning it. She made the satisfied sound she'd been making since she was three when a plan had been confirmed to her satisfaction and handed the phone to Dana. And Marcus talked to his sister for 10 minutes about nothing that mattered.
And by the time he hung up the knot that had been sitting at the base of his sternum for the past week had loosened one turn, not all the way. One turn, he went back to the bid documents and worked until 9. 3 days later, Tuesday morning at 7:50, 20 minutes before their usual check in his phone rang. Diane, I need you to know something before this moves forward. She said something I should have told you before now.
He waited. Bitch's connection to this company isn't just the vendor play. She said he has a board level relationship. My ex-husband brought him in as an investor 2 years ago. After we separated, my ex still holds a board seat, a pause, which means when Hartwell's disclosure goes to the full board.
My ex will see it first and he'll tell Fitch before the meeting convenes. Marcus sat with that. So Fitch gets advanced notice, he said. Approximately 72 hours, maybe less depending on when the letter arrives. What does he do with 72 hours?
She was quiet for a moment and he understood she'd already mapped this. She'd had 3 days. He tries to reframe the Pacific Ridge documentation as manufactured. He tries to make it look like I built a case against a vendor using an employee who had personal grievances. Someone with a history of conflict around this contractor group who could be presented as unreliable or biased.
A pause which means he needs to move on you make you look like you don't know what you're talking about or that you're not an objective source personal Marcus said he already has been. She said the text the early calls to our general counsel he was trying to undercut you as a source before you became one. That's not a financial calculation. That's someone who remembers Phoenix and knows which pressure points are there. Marcus was quiet for a moment.
He was thinking about something that had been sitting wrong since Gail's call 3 weeks ago. A small asymmetry he hadn't been able to place until now. He started making calls before my name was on the Cambria or chart. He said yes. Gail said she thought it started before you offered me the role.
That's correct. Which means he didn't move because I took the job. He kept his voice level. He moved because someone pulled the Phoenix file. A long pause.
Different from the others. Yes, she said that was you. He said you pulled the file. He found out or he saw the discovery records get accessed or someone in his network flagged it. And he responded by going after the source of the file.
Yes, she said again. How long have you been building this case? The pause this time was the longest yet. 14 months, she said. Since I recognized the holding company structure in a vendor database during a different project, I saw Trident Pacific listed as a sub reference and I knew the name from financial filings I'd read years earlier.
I started pulling threads. Marcus stared at the eucalyptus in the side office parking lot, visible through the single window. It was moving in the offshore wind. He'd watched it a lot over the past month without registering that he was watching it. And you needed someone on Cambria who'd been inside the Phoenix situation, he said.