He looked at her. Did it work? He said something in her face changed. The business precision of it softened just at the edges. You made me dinosaur granola bars, she said.
So, yes, it worked. He almost laughed. They're shaped like Stegosauruses. Amara picked them specifically. Amara has good taste.
Don't tell her that. Her head's the right size. Victoria said, and he heard his own words from the morning before. In her mouth, exact and perfectly recalled. He looked at her a long moment.
We're going to have to figure out what this is, he said. Given the circumstances. Given the circumstances, she agreed. I work in your building. You run maintenance in one of my facilities.
Yes, that's a problem. It could be. I need you to know, he said that this morning wasn't. He paused. I'm not looking to be anyone's project.
Her chin came up. I'm not in the business of projects. And I'm not going to tell you what you want to hear because of who signs what. Nobody signs your checks directly. You have three supervisors between us.
You know that already. I looked it up on the drive over. Yes. He nodded. Okay.
He said, "Okay, one condition." She waited. My daughter is not a story. She's not a headline. She's not a warm detail.
She's not a human interest angle. She's my kid. She stays out of everything. Victoria's face was very serious when she answered. I would never, she said.
Not ever. Not for any reason. He studied her face the way he studied machinery, looking for the thing that was going to fail. The place where the tolerance was too thin, the joint that would crack under pressure. He was good at finding those things.