Lahat ng Kabanata ng His Greatest Regret: Kabanata 41 - Kabanata 50

TARIKThe package arrives at ten past ten, two binders and a drive, and Marissa sets them on the conference table like she's afraid they'll go off."From Mr. Graves's office. He says everything's in there.""Thank you.""Eat something this time."I open the first binder. It smells of toner and fresh punch holes. I take the legal pad and start where my sticky note told me to: the assignment.I don't find one.I find the acquisition. It's a purchase agreement between Brightwater Civil and the owners of Northgate Civil Works, signed in March and closed in May of last year, with a signature page, a schedule of assets, and a list of equipment I could read aloud. Ethan's one-page story was true at least that much. Brightwater bought Northgate.I write it on the pad___acquisition: documented.Then I look for what carries the Calloway subcontract from one company to the other, and the schedule of contracts in the agreement lists eleven Northgate jobs. Calloway Street isn't one of them.***I

TARIKDana Whitfield is standing in my doorway at ten past nine Thursday morning with a closing-set binder against her chest. She's never come to me before. I've always been the one who called. "The set was on site," she says. "I'd rather walk you through it than put it in an email." "Come in."She sets the binder on the conference table, opens it to a flagged index, and doesn't sit. Mid-forties, gray suit, reading glasses pushed up into dark hair that hasn't moved since I met her. She keeps one finger on the page. "The side letter is listed. Item thirty-one, under miscellaneous closing correspondence. So it was in this file." "That's good.""It's something." She turns a page. "Now the transmittal. Every document in a closing set arrives with a routing slip showing who sent it and who logged it. Most of them have an internal name. This one has a courier tag and a receiving stamp, and the sender line is blank." I look. A pale sticker, a tracking number, a date stamp. Nothing handw

TARIKI'm forty minutes late, and Elena doesn't mention it.I sit in the car outside her building for a full minute before I go up. The lenders ran long. They wanted to hear me say the word *verified* three different ways, and I gave them the same answer three times. Nobody in that room was unkind about it. They were simply careful, and being on the receiving end of careful is exhausting. I loosen my tie in the elevator and make it worse.She opens the door in a gray sweater with her hair pulled back, takes one look at me, and steps aside."She's at the piano," Elena says, low. "She's been at it since school. She asked twice if you were still coming.""Twice?""Once when she got home. Once ten minutes ago." She doesn't say it as a reproach, and she doesn't soften it. "Dinner's done. There's bread in the oven if you want it."Garlic and butter drift down the hall. I haven't eaten since seven this morning, and I know I won't until after.I hang my jacket on the hook by the door.Ivy sit

TARIKI am still holding the door when Sophia disappears into the corridor.For a second, I stay where I am, one hand on the handle, the packet under my other arm. The room behind me is emptying. Someone calls Renata's name. A chair scrapes the floor, and two people compare notes on the schedule in low voices.I let the door close."Tarik."Renata catches me before I reach the end of the corridor, a folder tucked against her side. An authority staffer stands beside her with a printed schedule."We need to confirm the first site meeting," Renata says. "Tuesday at eight still works?""Yes.""And the borings locations?""Monday. Okafor's staff will have them, and our engineer needs a copy before the rig mobilizes."The staffer makes a note. Renata asks about access to the lower terrace, and I answer. I know the answer. I know the next three things that need doing, too. There are always three more.A year ago, I would already have been halfway through them. I'd have called the engineer, s

SOPHIAI draw the box a third time, and it still doesn't fit.The authority's schedule lies flat on the hotel desk beside a month grid I printed downstairs, both pinned under the water carafe. My laptop is open to the same month. I've been at this desk since lunch. I'm working in pencil. Pencil is more honest about how often I change my mind.Two days a week in New York. I cross out two and write three. The days on either side of a site day belong to the plane, and nothing I can do at thirty thousand feet counts as design coordination.The reviews are the part nobody else can do for me. Every discipline's drawings have to agree before anything gets built, and I told the committee I'd be the one in the room. The authority's packet gives me dates for the first few reviews and TBC for the rest. I can't plan around a TBC.The dates I do have go in first, and beside each one I note who sits across the table from me. Tarik's name goes down in the same pencil as everyone else's. Then I move