“Good.”
Daniel frowned.
“Good?”
“From a corruption perspective.”
“Not from every other perspective.”
He looked away.
Melanie continued:
“What caused you to initiate the contact?”
“Expensive vehicle.”
“Unknown person.”
She stopped writing.
“That is not enough.”
“I know how it sounds.”
“I’m not asking how it sounds.”
“I’m asking what conduct you observed.”
Daniel thought.
“She was fueling.”
“Anything illegal?”
“No.”
“Tampering?”
“No.”
“Different plate?”
“No.”
“Trying to hide?”
“No.”
“Someone called?”
“No.”
Melanie slowly placed her pen down.
“You initiated entirely on your own?”
“Yes.”
The room became quiet.
Union counsel, Peter Shaw, leaned forward.
“Daniel, we're going to be precise here.”
“Suspicion can arise from totality.”
“Did anything about the vehicle itself appear inconsistent?”
Daniel searched memory.
Temporary sticker?
No.
Damage?
No.
Plate?
Clean.
Elena?
Calm.
Nothing.
“I thought it might be stolen.”
Peter asked:
“Why?”
Daniel looked at him.
There was the question again.
Why.
He had spent the entire encounter demanding Elena explain herself.
Now one question had become impossible.
“I don't know.”
The attorneys looked at each other.
That answer was legally terrible.
Personally, it might have been the first honest one.
Across town, Elena sat at her father’s kitchen table drinking tea.
Marcus lived in a modest cedar house overlooking a pasture.
No mansion.
No gates.
No luxury cars in the garage.
The Suburban was six years old.
He could afford more.
He did not care.
Elena had inherited her taste for expensive things from her mother, not Marcus.
Her mother Diane Vance had loved fashion, cars, hotels, jewelry, and anything beautifully designed.
She died four years earlier.
Cancer.
Marcus became quieter afterward.
Elena visited as often as work allowed.
The Lamborghini had been Diane’s dream car.
She never bought one.
After selling a portion of Vance Risk, Elena finally did.
Pearl white because Diane loved white cars.
Marcus had laughed when he saw it.
“Your mother would have made me sleep in the garage just so she could have both spaces.”
Now the car sat outside with afternoon dust along its tires.
Marcus stared through the kitchen window.
Elena watched him.
“You’re angry.”
He nodded.
“That obvious?”
“Yes.”
He sat.
Not across.
Beside her.
“I told myself that case was finished.”
Elena looked down.
“Was it?”
“I thought so.”
“Did you forgive him?”
Marcus laughed softly.
“People talk about forgiveness like paperwork.”
“Signed.”
“Filed.”
“Closed.”
He shook his head.
“I stopped thinking about him.”
“That was enough.”
Elena nodded.
Marcus continued:
“When I saw him holding your registration…”
His voice changed.
Elena looked toward him.
“I was forty-one again.”