Chapter 6 - The Man Who Kept His Job
Brennan did not answer immediately.
Graham could hear traffic behind him.
“I didn’t know about your shop until Thursday.”
“That leaves a lot you might have known before Thursday.”
“I know.”
Lydia sat beside Graham at the kitchen table.
They were home again, but the house still felt unfamiliar. There were legal notes beside the fruit bowl and a list of canceled orders under a refrigerator magnet from their honeymoon.
“What do you want, Owen?” she asked.
“To tell you something before Sebastian changes it.”
Graham reached for a pen.
“Tell our lawyer.”
“I’m trying to decide if I can trust her.”
Lydia’s voice sharpened.
“You don’t get to make trust the condition after you stood outside that room.”
Brennan breathed out.
“You’re right.”
He agreed to contact Elise.
They ended the call.
For several minutes, Graham and Lydia remained at the table.
Then she said, “I thought hearing him admit something would make me feel better.”
“Did it?”
“No.”
“Me neither.”
Brennan spoke with the investigators through counsel the following day. Graham and Lydia learned only what Elise could appropriately share afterward.
He had seen Nora’s concerns.
He had accepted Sebastian’s explanation.
Later, when Lydia raised similar questions, he realized the problems were larger than he had admitted to himself.
Still, he stayed.
His compensation included a retention payment that would arrive after the next contract renewal. His wife had recently lost her job. Their daughter was starting college.
He had a reason for every month he remained silent.
The reasons did not change what he had allowed.
“He can provide information,” Elise said. “That doesn’t make him blameless.”
Graham appreciated the distinction.
By Wednesday, the case had spread beyond a small business article.
A television station wanted to interview him outside the shop.
He declined.
The reporter waited across the street anyway.
Customers walked past the camera with their shoulders hunched.
Graham realized that innocence was not a feeling he could transfer to strangers. It had to become something they could verify.
With Elise’s guidance, he posted a short statement on the shop’s website.
Mercer Woodworks had not supplied the disputed housing contracts, had not received the listed payments, and was cooperating fully with investigators.
No insults.
No accusations he could not support.
Still, his hands shook when he clicked publish.
That afternoon, Calder Ridge released its own statement.
It described an employee-led certification failure and emphasized that senior leadership had acted promptly upon discovering irregularities.
Lydia read it standing beside the stove.
“They’re still doing it.”
Graham took the phone from her before she could read the comments.
But not before he saw one himself.
Her husband probably knew.
He set the phone facedown.
For a moment, the kitchen disappeared beneath a wave of anger.
He wanted to drive downtown.
He wanted Sebastian to feel even one minute of what he had inflicted on their lives.
Instead, Graham went outside and split the old wood stacked behind the garage.
When he returned, Lydia was sitting on the floor.
Their wedding album lay open beside her.
“I wasn’t looking for it,” she said. “I was finding the home insurance papers.”
He lowered himself beside her.
In the photograph, they stood outside a courthouse because the rain had ruined their garden ceremony. Lydia held a crooked bouquet. Graham’s tie was stained with coffee.
They looked impossibly young.
“I miss us,” she whispered.
“We’re still here.”
“Are we?”
He looked at the picture.
Then at her.
“I’m here. I don’t know how quickly I stop being angry.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“And I need you to stop deciding that loving me means keeping bad things away from me.”
She nodded.
“I made you lonely while I thought I was protecting you.”
The sentence landed more deeply than any apology she had offered.
“Yes,” he said.
She reached for his hand.
This time, he reached back.
The next morning, Elise called with news.
A public procurement review had been scheduled.
Calder Ridge intended to send Sebastian.
Lydia had been invited to testify about the records bearing her name.
She looked at Graham.
For the first time, she did not ask whether she should hide.
“I’m going,” she said.
May you like
He nodded.
“I’ll be there.”
