She's recommending full board disclosure. Diane said, "Not just the governance subcommittee, the whole board. That's the right call." Marcus said, "It opens me up." She said, "My ex will push back. He'll say I'm using the governance process to settle a personal dispute. That's what Fitch will tell him to say." Marcus said, "It's also not going to work because the Pacific Ridge documentation doesn't have your name on it.
It has mine and your general counselss." The case was built by an employee following procurement policy. She looked at him. You're not the one who found the vendor irregularity. He said, "I am through standard bid review. Your involvement is in escalating it appropriately, which is what a VP is supposed to do." He paused.
"You've been thinking about this as your fight. It's not only your fight." The elevator arrived. Neither of them moved toward it. Marcus, she said, "Yeah." She looked at him with something he'd been cataloging for months and refusing to name. And for a moment it looked like she was going to name it herself.
And then the elevator closed and the moment went with it. Wednesday was good. She said, "Thank you. Procurement policy," he said. "It's what I'm here for." She almost smiled.
"Go back to Cambria going." He said. He drove back up the 101 with the windows down and the radio off and the particular feeling of a situation that was almost clear, not resolved. Not safe, but the shape of it visible now. The edges defined. Fitch would move in the 72-hour window.
Marcus would be ready. Hartwell would file and the board would see what they were going to see and whatever happened after that would happen after that. He called Lily from the road. You're driving, she said. I can hear the wind.
Handsfree, he said. Tell me something. I made a volcano for science, she said. With baking soda and the red stuff, vinegar. It went pretty far, she said.
Miss Patterson had to move back. That's a successful volcano, he said. Dad. Yeah. Are you okay?
He watched the coastline through the passenger window. The water was doing what it always did at this hour, going dark at the edges and holding the last light in the middle as if it knew something was ending and wanted to hold on to it a minute longer. Getting there. He said, "By Saturday. By Saturday," he said.
Chocolate chip. "Okay," she said. And she said it with the confidence of someone for whom his word was still a fixed point, which was the thing he'd been working to keep true since the morning in Phoenix when everything else had become unfixed. He drove the rest of the way in the dark, thinking about 72 hours and what Fitch would do with them. And underneath that, quieter, more stubborn thinking about an elevator that had closed before something had been said.
He was going to have to deal with that eventually. Not tonight. Tonight, he had a file to update and a site report to finish and a 72-hour window to prepare for, but eventually Hartwell filed on a Friday. Marcus knew because Diane sent him a single message at 10:12 a.m. It's done. Clock started.
No other text. He read it in the Cambria site office, set the phone face down on the desk, and spent the next 4 minutes finishing the paragraph of the site report he'd been writing before the message arrived. Then he picked the phone back up and started a timer. 72 hours. He spent Friday afternoon doing the thing he'd learned to do in Phoenix when his situation was in motion and there was nothing to do.
But wait, he worked. Not busy work, real work. He finalized the mechanical systems bid review, flagged two contractors for a second look, and sent the Cambria permit timeline to the city liaison who'd been sitting on it for 11 days. He did not check his phone every 20 minutes. He checked it every 40, which was the best he could manage.
Nothing from Fitch, nothing from Diane. He drove to the grocery store at 6, bought the ingredients for pancakes, and called Lily while he was in the cereal aisle because the cereal aisle in this particular store stocked a brand she'd been obsessed with for 3 months and wasn't available near Dana's house. They have the astronaut once, he said. Get two boxes, she said. You're not here until Saturday.
Get them now and I'll eat them Saturday. She said the logic works. He got two boxes. He did not mention the 72 hours. He told her about the volcano story she'd sent him, which she corrected in four places because apparently his recollection of the details was already imprecise.
She handed the phone to Dana, who told him he sounded tired, which he was, and to eat something that wasn't from a gas station, which he also did. He made pasta at the motel's kitchenet and was asleep by 10:00. Saturday passed quietly. He went to the site in the morning, walked the property with the site supervisor, made notes, and came back to the office. He did not hear from Fitch.
He did not hear from Diane, which was different from Friday's silence Friday had felt like held breath. Saturday felt like something in motion just below the surface. At 4 p.m., his phone buzzed. A text from Gail. Heads up, there was a call today.
Someone from Fitch's attorney's office contacted HR about a formal complaint. Something about hostile work environment targeting. They named you. Marcus read it twice. There it was.
He typed back. Thanks. I've got documentation. You okay, Gail? I'm fine.
I wasn't named. Just thought you should know before Monday. He appreciated that. He added it to his file date, time, content of the message. Then he called Hartwell's emergency line, which she'd given him at the end of Wednesday's meeting with the specific instruction to use it if Fitch moved directly before the board convened.
She picked up on the second ring. He read her the text. Hostile work environment. She said it wasn't a question. That's the credibility play.