Chapter 12 - THE PRICE OF THREE HUNDRED FAMILIESNineteen million dollars.
I stared at the number until the digits blurred.
I thought about Dad comparing prices at the grocery store.
About our electricity bill.
About the years I had worked late shifts because we couldn't afford to replace his wheelchair.
Then I thought about Malcolm Pierce.
He owned a house in Sewickley, a vacation property in Florida, and enough money to spend the rest of his life comfortably.
Yet he was apparently willing to destroy hundreds of jobs for another fortune.
I looked at Nia.
“How much money does one man need?”
She sighed.
“Sometimes the problem isn't need.”
“What is it?”
“Believing that wanting something makes you entitled to it.”
I went home carrying copies of the documents we were permitted to review.
Dad sat quietly while I explained the projected layoffs.
When I finished, he didn't ask how much his shares might be worth.
He asked whether the workers knew.
“Not all of them.”
“Then they should.”
“Nia says we have to be careful about releasing confidential documents.”
“She knows what she's doing.”
Dad thought for a moment.
“Can we tell the employee representatives what we've learned through the proper channels?”
“I'll ask.”
He nodded.
“Good.”
Then he looked at me.
“Ella, if we win this, I don't want my only legacy to be a big check.”
I frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“I want to know whether we can keep those people working.”
I sat beside him.
“Dad, you could use the money.”
He looked at his cane.
“I know.”
“You need better medical care. We need a place without stairs. You've spent years giving up things.”
He smiled.
“And I would like some of them back.”
For a moment, he looked almost mischievous.
“A house with a garden would be nice. Maybe a television that doesn't make the players look green.”
I laughed.
Then his face became serious.
“But none of that would make me happy if three hundred families lost their livelihoods so I could buy it.”
I reached for his hand.
“We don't have to choose yet.”
“I know.”
He squeezed my fingers.
“I just want you to understand what matters to me.”
The next morning, Nia arranged a meeting with Luis, Denise Porter, and several employee representatives.
We met at a community center rather than company property.
The room smelled of coffee and floor cleaner.
Folding chairs surrounded a long table.
Denise was a fifty-eight-year-old quality inspector who had worked at Riverbend for thirty-one years.
She wore reading glasses on a chain and spoke with the confidence of someone accustomed to telling engineers when their measurements were wrong.
“Let's start with the question everybody wants answered,” she said.
“Are we losing our jobs?”
Nia explained what could be responsibly disclosed.
The sale was under judicial review.
The company had prepared restructuring scenarios involving substantial layoffs.
But no final decision had been made, and the available documents still required verification.
Denise listened without interrupting.
Then she leaned back.
“That's corporate language for somebody wants us gone.”
Luis folded his arms.
“Looks that way.”
A younger worker named Marcus raised his hand.
“I've got a mortgage and two kids. I don't have six months to figure out whether this place survives.”
I watched Nia answer.
She didn't make false promises.
She explained what the court order protected and what it didn't.
She told them legal action could preserve options, but it couldn't automatically guarantee the company's financial future.
I respected her for that.
After the meeting, Denise stopped me near the door.
“Your dad's Thomas Reed?”
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“He hired me.”
I blinked.
“He did?”
“Thirty-one years ago. I was twenty-seven, divorced, and trying to raise my daughter. I didn't have the certifications the other applicants had.”
“What happened?”
“He asked whether I was willing to learn.”
I smiled.
“That sounds like him.”
“He put me in the training program. Took me six months to pass the quality exam.”
She looked toward Luis.
“My daughter became a nurse because I had that job. My grandson's in college now.”
Her eyes filled.
“Your father probably doesn't remember any of that.”
“He remembers more than people think.”
Denise touched my arm.
“Tell him Denise Porter says thank you.”
I nodded.
“I will.”
As the workers left, a man approached me.
He was tall, with a close-trimmed beard and a faded Steelers jacket.
He introduced himself as Aaron Bell, a maintenance technician.
“I worked on that hydraulic press,” he said.
My attention sharpened.
“In 2013?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know about the defective safety system?”
He looked uncomfortable.
“I knew something was wrong. But I was told the replacement parts were on order.”
“Who told you?”
“The production supervisor.”
“Do you still have the maintenance logs?”
He shook his head.
“The old logs disappeared after the accident.”
I felt disappointed.
Then he reached into his jacket.
“But I kept something.”
He showed me a photograph on his phone.
It depicted the hydraulic press with a temporary maintenance tag attached to its control panel.
The tag read:
DO NOT OPERATE — SAFETY INTERLOCK FAILURE.
The photograph was dated two days before Mateo's injury.
My heart began pounding.
“Who put that tag there?”
“Thomas Reed.”
I stared at the screen.
Aaron swiped to another photograph.
The same machine.
Same control panel.
But the warning tag was gone.
The second photograph was taken the morning of the accident.
Nia, who had returned to collect her briefcase, approached us.
I showed her the images.
She immediately asked Aaron to preserve the original files and speak with an investigator.
He nodded.
Then his expression changed.
“There's something else.”
“What?”
“That machine wasn't supposed to be restarted until the safety interlock was replaced.”
“Who ordered it restarted?”
Aaron looked around the nearly empty room.
“I never saw the actual order.”
“Then how do you know?”
“Because the production supervisor told us it came from the executive floor.”
“Malcolm?”
Aaron hesitated.
“That's what we thought.”
My phone vibrated.
It was a message from June Mercer.
She had obtained an archived email from August 2013.
I opened the attachment.
The email was addressed to the Riverbend production supervisor.
Its subject line read:
RE: PRESS 4 — PRODUCTION DELAY.
The message instructed management to proceed under an interim operating plan despite the unresolved safety concern.
I scrolled to the bottom.
The sender wasn't Malcolm.
It was Adrian Vale.
The instruction read:
We cannot afford another delay. Proceed with the production plan Malcolm approved and resolve the remaining maintenance concerns as quickly as possible.
I stared at the screen.
For days, Adrian had told us he regretted trusting Malcolm.
May you like
Now I was looking at evidence that he had personally authorized production to continue.
And the message had been sent less than forty-eight hours before Mateo was injured.
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