He didn't call ahead. He walked in, told the receptionist he needed 5 minutes with Ms. Sterling, and waited. She came down herself, not her assistant, not a deputy, her. They stood in the lobby of Sterling Crown Industries, and Malcolm told her in four sentences what Delgato's team had found.
The tracking device, the access log, the email that predated the contract, the theory. Victoria Sterling stood very still. She was good at still. He'd noticed that before. But this was different from the conference room kind of still.
This was the still of someone whose body was processing something the mind wasn't ready to accept yet. Someone was tracking my flights, she said. For 14 months, he said, "And you think Curtis Hayward? I think Curtis Hayward was part of something larger than a procurement fraud." Malcolm said, "I think Delgato's team is going to be working that thread for a while. He paused.
I wanted you to know before you heard it from somewhere else. She looked at him. Why? She said, "Because you grounded your fleet when you didn't have to," he said. "Because you called the FAA before you called your lawyers.
Because you came to my shop alone," he paused. "And because your father wrote your name in a notebook, too. Just not on the same list as mine." She blinked. "Just once." "What list was my name on?" She said he didn't give it a title. Malcolm said it was just a list of people he was worried about, people he wanted to make sure were protected.
He paused. Daniel told me. He read the notebooks after Charles died. Victoria was quiet for a very long moment. Then she said quietly almost to herself.
He knew. He knew something. Malcolm said he didn't know how much. She looked at the floor, then back at Malcolm. "What do I do?" she said.
And it was the most human thing he'd heard her say. "Not the CEO, not the billiondoll heir, just a woman standing in the lobby of her company asking a mechanic what to do." "Go home," he said. "Let Delgato's team do their work tonight. Cooperate completely tomorrow, and trust that you made the right calls when it mattered." She nodded. Malcolm, she said as he turned to leave.
He stopped. Thank you, she said. Not for the work, for the conversation in your shop. For making me understand what I was actually looking at. He looked at her.
That's what your father paid me for. He said the first time he walked out. He got in his truck. He sat there for a moment in the Sterling Crown parking garage. He thought about circuits, about how a fault doesn't announce itself.