Victor had been building this for a year and a half. The campaign to discredit her judgment at the board level had not been designed to hurt her. It had been designed to make her the named responsible party when Cascade Cove became a problem. She picked up her phone. Then she put it down because the one person who had flagged an anomaly on this exact project, who had documented it, reported it, and been ignored was Nolan Ree.
Months ago, during a routine service call at the Cascade Cove site, he had noted irregular load readings on two secondary circuits and submitted a written concern to the general contractor. She had found the document buried in the procurement file. The general contractor had logged it as received and done nothing. She picked up her phone again. He answered on the third ring.
It's Leona, she said. A pause. Not hostile. Just careful. I know, he said.
I need to talk to you, she said. Not about us. About Cascade Cove. Another pause. She could hear background noise, the workshop, she thought.
Or somewhere like it. The sound of a radio. Tell me, he said. She told him. She laid it out the same way she had laid it out for herself.
The inspection discrepancies, the materials grades, the falsified signoffs, the ownership chain. She did not editorialize. She gave him the facts in the order she had assembled them and let him follow. When she finished, there was a long silence. I filed a written concern in March, he said.
I found it this morning, she said. It was in the procurement file. Nobody acted on it. I called the site supervisor after I filed it. He said.