Chương 7
Daniel closed the email.
The photograph disappeared.
For a moment, the empty screen looked safer.
It was not.
“Print it.”
Maya blinked.
“What?”
“Print the photo.”
“Daniel, if someone sent this to you—”
“Print it.”
The sharpness in his voice surprised both of them.
Maya slowly reached for the printer settings.
Daniel hated hearing himself sound afraid.
Fear changed his voice before it changed anything else.
A minute later, the printer started making its mechanical clicking sound.
The same sound it made every morning when someone printed shipping labels.
The ordinary noise bothered him more than the photograph had.
Life kept continuing even when the foundation underneath it moved.
Maya handed him the page.
Daniel held it by the corners.
“What are you going to do?”
He looked at the image.
“I’m going to find out why my dead brother was standing next to the accident that almost destroyed my company.”
Maya did not respond immediately.
Then she said, “That’s not the whole sentence.”
Daniel looked up.
She folded her arms.
“You’re leaving something out.”
He almost denied it.
The denial reached his mouth and stopped there.
“Ethan and I weren’t close at the end.”
Maya’s expression softened slightly.
“That happens.”
“No.”
Daniel shook his head.
“That’s what people say when they want to make things smaller.”
He placed the photograph beside the document.
“We were close when we were younger.”
The warehouse noise outside continued.
A forklift beeped while moving backward.
Someone laughed near the loading dock.
A phone rang at the front desk.
“We were the kind of brothers who knew everything about each other.”
Daniel stared at the photograph.
“Then we became adults.”
Maya waited.
She knew better than to interrupt when he was finally saying something real.
“Ethan thought I cared more about work than people.”
“Did he?”
Daniel looked toward the window.
“I thought caring about work was how you protected people.”
The answer sounded weaker after he said it.
Maya noticed.
She did not pretend otherwise.
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It was useful.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
Daniel looked back at her.
For a second, he wanted to argue.
He had spent years becoming someone who could defend anything with a practical explanation.
The right process.
The right decision.
The right reason.
But Ethan had always been better at finding what existed underneath those answers.
The door opened without a knock.
Tom Reeves stood there.
He was the current plant director and one of the few people at Northline who had been there longer than Daniel.
His gray hair had become almost completely white in the last few years.
He carried a folder under one arm and looked annoyed before he even spoke.
“You two planning a meeting without inviting me?”
Maya immediately stepped away from the desk.
“Sorry.”
Tom looked between them.
“That usually means I’m supposed to be worried.”
Daniel folded the photograph.
“Why?”
Tom noticed the movement.
“Because you look like you’re hiding something.”
Daniel felt the familiar temptation to lie.
Not a big lie.
A small one.
The kind people told themselves did not count.
Nothing serious.
Nothing permanent.
Just enough to delay damage.
He had built half his career on delaying damage.
“Do you remember the accident twelve years ago?”
Tom’s face changed.
Only slightly.
But Daniel saw it.
That was enough.
“Why are you asking?”
Daniel noticed the question.
Not the answer.
The question.
Tom had not said he forgot.
He had not said what accident.
He had not asked which one.
Maya noticed too.
Daniel could tell because she stopped typing.
“Because I found something.”
Tom put the folder down.
“Where?”
“That’s not important.”
“It is if you’re asking me about something from twelve years ago.”
Daniel studied him.
“Were you involved in the investigation?”
Tom looked tired.
Not surprised.
Tired.
“I was the maintenance director.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Tom rubbed his forehead.
“Daniel.”
“No.”
Daniel kept his voice calm.
“Everybody keeps answering the question they wish I asked.”
The room became uncomfortable.
Tom looked at Maya.
“She showed you?”
Maya looked offended.
“I didn’t show him anything.”
That answer caught Daniel’s attention.
Tom looked away.
“You knew about the archive.”
Tom did not answer.
Daniel stepped closer.
“Tom.”
The older man sighed.
“I knew there were files.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means companies have records.”
“That is a sentence, not an explanation.”
Tom looked at the floor.
For the first time Daniel saw something he rarely saw from him.
Uncertainty.
“I thought they were gone.”
Daniel felt the air leave his chest.
“Who told you they were gone?”
Tom looked up.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
A long silence followed.
Then Tom said quietly, “Ethan.”
Daniel stared at him.
Maya stopped moving.
The name seemed to change the temperature of the room.
“You knew my brother?”
Tom did not answer quickly enough.
Daniel’s expression hardened.
“You knew him.”
Tom sat down in the chair across from the desk.
“I knew him before you knew he was asking questions.”
Daniel felt anger rise.
Not explosive.
Not loud.
Something colder.
“You’re telling me my dead brother was investigating my company and you never said anything?”
Tom looked exhausted.
“I’m telling you I didn’t understand what he was doing.”
“That’s convenient.”
“It’s true.”
“Why should I believe you?”
Tom looked at him.
“Because I have spent twelve years hoping nobody would ask me that question.”
Nobody spoke.
The honesty of the answer made it worse.
Maya glanced between them.
“What happened after the accident?”
Tom looked at the photograph in Daniel’s hand.
“Your brother came to the plant three days later.”
“Why?”
“He said he found something wrong with the official report.”
Daniel felt his fingers tighten around the paper.
“What did he find?”
Tom looked toward the window.
“I don’t know everything.”
“Then tell me what you know.”
Tom took a slow breath.
“Ethan believed the accident was not caused by equipment failure.”
Daniel waited.
May you like
“He believed someone changed the maintenance records before the investigation.”
The sentence sat there.
