Chương 8
Fear.
Pure and unmistakable.
“Daniel.”
He did not answer.
“What do you know?”
“I know you’re about to tear your life apart over a flashlight.”
“No.”
I stood.
My cane struck the desk.
“I’m tearing it apart over the fact that everyone keeps telling me not to look.”
The irony landed after I said it.
Nobody laughed.
Cross walked to the door.
His hand touched the handle.
I heard it.
“Daniel.”
He stopped.
“Did Hale know about the access badge?”
Cross remained silent.
“Did Hale know Lewis Dane entered Pier 17 before the explosion?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Another silence.
Then Cross said, “Because Hale was at the meeting.”
The door handle stayed motionless beneath Cross’s hand.
I heard Navarro’s chair shift as she turned toward him.
Hannah did not move at all.
I could feel her stillness beside me like another person in the room.
“What was he doing there?” I asked.
Cross released the handle.
“He wasn’t there as your doctor.”
“That narrows it down beautifully.”
“He was consulting for Mercer.”
“On what?”
“The medical side of a labor claim.”
I frowned.
“What labor claim?”
Cross let out a slow breath.
“Dockworkers had been reporting dizziness, headaches, numbness, a couple of collapses.”
Navarro spoke before I could.
“Exposure to what?”
“We didn’t know.”
“You brought a private physician into a freight discrepancy meeting because workers were getting sick?”
Cross faced her.
“We brought Hale because he had reviewed some of the incident reports.”
“Why him?”
“Because Grant trusted him.”
The answer hit harder than it should have.
I turned toward Cross.
“Who suggested him?”
He did not answer fast enough.
“You?”
“Yes.”
Something hot moved through my chest.
“Why?”
“Because he was already treating you, and I thought he’d keep it quiet.”
“Keep what quiet?”
“The workers were talking about chemicals.”
Navarro’s voice sharpened.
“What chemicals?”
Cross rubbed his jaw.
“We had several containers flagged under agricultural additives and industrial solvents.”
“Flagged by whom?”
“Our internal compliance team.”
I felt an old memory push forward.
A folder hitting a table.
Someone saying the manifests had been rewritten after arrival.
Another voice telling me we had bigger problems if customs had already seen the discrepancies.
I could not place the speaker.
“Were the containers opened?” I asked.
“One was.”
“By us?”
“By a subcontracted inspection crew.”
“What did they find?”
“Nothing obvious.”
“That means nothing.”
“I know.”
Cross sounded exhausted now.
“One worker got sick afterward.”
“Which worker?”
“Lewis Dane.”
The room tilted without moving.
“You said Dane had a contractor badge.”
“He did.”
“What kind of contractor?”
“Maintenance and hazardous cleanup.”
Navarro muttered something under her breath.
I caught only the word Jesus.
“Why would a hazardous cleanup contractor be entering the pier before an explosion tied to suspicious freight?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I don’t know.”
Cross turned away from the door.
“You think I haven’t asked myself that every damn week for five years?”
“No.”
I took one step toward his voice.
“I think you decided which answers I could survive and kept the rest.”
He said nothing.
I heard his breathing change.
That was confirmation enough.
Navarro intervened.
“Mr. Mercer, whatever happened at the pier, we still need to separate it from your current medical findings.”
“Can we?”
“Yes.”
Her certainty steadied the room.
“At least for today.”
She picked up the bottle again.
“I can arrange a toxicology analysis through an independent laboratory.”
“How long?”
“A few days for a broad screen, longer if we need targeted testing.”
“Do it.”
Cross spoke sharply.
“Grant.”
I turned toward him.
“You don’t get a vote.”
“I’m not asking for one.”
“Then what?”
“I’m asking whether you’ve considered what happens if this turns out to be exactly what Hale says.”
“Then I apologize.”
“To him?”
“Yes.”
“And to me?”
I held still.
“For what?”
“For spending one morning deciding I might have helped blind you.”
The words landed with no drama because he sounded almost embarrassed by them.
That made them worse.
I lowered my cane.
“I haven’t decided that.”
“You don’t have to say it.”
“No.”
I faced him fully.
“You don’t get to turn suspicion into something I did to you.”
He laughed once, bitterly.
“There he is.”
“Who?”
“The Grant Mercer who thinks if he says something in the right tone, everyone else’s feelings become a paperwork problem.”
Navarro looked away.
Hannah did not.
I felt my face grow hot.
Cross continued.
“You want everything now?”
“Yes.”
“Fine.”
He stepped away from the door.
“After the explosion, the police found residue in the pier office.”
“What kind?”
“Fire accelerant.”
Navarro’s voice dropped.
“That was not a simple cargo blast.”
“No.”
My throat tightened.
I had spent five years with a version of the explosion that involved an electrical failure, secondary ignition, and improperly stored solvent.
Bad luck made official.
Ugly, negligent, preventable bad luck.
“Who knew?” I asked.
“Police.”
“Obviously.”
“Federal investigators.”
“Who at Mercer?”
“Me.”
“Martin?”
“Some of it.”
“Hale?”
“Yes.”
My grip tightened around the cane.
“And me?”
Cross did not answer.
“And me, Daniel?”
“You were told the explosion was considered suspicious.”
“When?”
“In the hospital.”
I almost shouted.
Instead, I laughed.
The sound frightened me.
“You keep using that room like it was a courtroom.”
“You asked questions.”
“I was on morphine.”
“You were lucid sometimes.”
“Sometimes.”
“I didn’t know which parts would stick.”
“Then you tell me again.”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“Months later.”
“And I don’t remember.”
“You told me to stop.”
The answer cut through everything.
I went silent.
Cross’s voice softened.
“You told me Caroline and Emma were dead and none of the rest mattered.”
Something deep in me recoiled.
Not because I doubted him.
Because I could hear myself saying it.
There had been months when I could not endure hearing the word pier.
May you like
Months when Daniel had sat in the library drinking coffee while I told him to shut up about investigators, lawyers, claims, and company problems.
The truth did not absolve him.
