She stared.
He continued.
“It proves he was worried.”
“That is different.”
The boy watched both adults.
The CEO looked away.
The single father understood something she did not yet.
He had lived through grief.
Grief wanted an enemy.
Sometimes there was one.
Sometimes there wasn’t.
But grief loved speed.
Evidence required patience.
He said:
“We need someone outside your company.”
“My general counsel.”
“No.”
“She works for me.”
“She works for the corporation.”
“I am the corporation’s CEO.”
“That is not the same thing.”
The CEO looked at him.
He was right.
That irritated her more than if he had been wrong.
She took out her phone.
Then stopped.
The chairman.
She had almost called him automatically.
For twenty-two years, whenever company history became complicated, he had been the person who explained it.
When her mother struggled after the founder’s death, the chairman handled the board.
When the CEO went to business school, he recommended professors.
When she joined the company, he gave her access.
When she became CEO five years earlier, he stayed as chairman and called himself “the guardrail.”
He had encouraged the redevelopment project containing this garage.
He had told her the garage owner was months behind on obligations.
He had insisted on a twenty-four-hour evacuation order because demolition contractors had a narrow scheduling window.
The CEO slowly lowered the phone.
The single father saw her thinking.
“Who gave you the deadline?”
She looked at him.
“The redevelopment team.”
“Who controls it?”
“Chief property officer.”
“Who does he report to?”
She did not answer.
She did not need to.
The chairman.
The father walked to an old filing cabinet.
Pulled out another folder.
“I think you should see this.”
Inside were letters sent to the garage during the previous year.
Environmental inspections.
Property acquisition notices.
Claims that the garage’s underground fuel tank posed a contamination risk.
The CEO read.
“Do you have an underground fuel tank?”
“No.”
“Never?”
“There was one removed in 1998.”
“Documented?”
He showed her certificate.
Her expression hardened.
The corporation had been using an obsolete environmental database entry as basis for urgent access.
She turned another page.
Survey request.
Ground-penetrating radar.
That stopped her.
“Did they survey?”
“Two months ago.”
“Who?”
“Contractor hired by your company.”
“Did they find something?”
“They didn’t tell me.”
The CEO looked at the floor.
The hidden chamber.
Ground radar would almost certainly detect a void.
The urgency suddenly made sense.
Not proof.
But enough.
She whispered:
“They knew something was underneath.”
The father nodded.
“Maybe.”
The CEO picked up her phone.