Chapter 3

Same slow train home, same hard seat.

Finance wouldn't approve the return fare, so I paid the two hundred eighty-five out of my own pocket.

Forty-four hours round trip. Six meals. I got through it on two cups of instant ramen and three hard-boiled eggs.

Eighteen dollars left in my pocket.

When I stepped off the train, my legs felt loose under me, like I was walking on cotton.

No time to go home and change. Mr. Gilbert had already posted a notice in the company group chat.

【At ten o'clock this morning, an accountability meeting will be held over the lost engineering bid. Engineering, Sales, Product R&D, and Finance are all required to attend.】

Mr. Gilbert posted it himself. That meant he was angry.

A sixty-eight-million-dollar project. Not a small one. He had every right to be.

I hurried to the office, still stinking of sweat, and everybody automatically gave me a wide berth.

I went straight to the restroom, splashed water on my face, smoothed back my damp hair, and pushed open the office door like that.

Nathan blanked for a second, then handed me a tissue.

"You look wrecked. You didn't go bid on a project, you look like you fled a famine."

I gave a helpless, bitter smile. "Call it a famine, then. At least I didn't run for nothing—the bid got in."

Nathan pulled me aside and dropped his voice. "You see the notice Mr. Gilbert posted?"

"I saw it."

"Watch yourself. This isn't a debrief. It's a witch hunt."

I looked at him, confused, and his voice went lower still.

"First thing this morning Madison went into Vice President Delgado's office. Didn't come out for over an hour. You can bet she's washed her hands of the whole thing."

I said nothing.

Some things she couldn't wash off.

Back at my desk, Trevor called me into his office.

He stayed seated. Didn't offer me a chair, didn't ask how I'd gotten back.

His brow was knotted tight as he weighed his words.

"When the meeting starts, the chairman's going to be looking for someone to blame."

I didn't answer.

"Just say the train was delayed. Nothing else."

"The train was five minutes late."

He shot me a look.

"Then say there was traffic."

I curled my fingers into my palm.

"Mr. Foster, that route never had enough time to begin with. If I'd flown, I wouldn't have been late…"

"Don't bring that up!"

He cut me off, hard. "Madison is Vice President Delgado's protégé. Ten years in Finance, a lot of things you can't pin down. Don't make an enemy of her."

I bit down on my teeth and looked at him.

"Mr. Foster, I've been on this project three months. I revised the proposal seventeen times. The client was genuinely interested in working with us."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, impatient.

"No point saying any of that now. It's dead. We'll just find another project. You've been here less than a year, your word doesn't carry much weight. I'm telling you this for your own good."

"And if I'd flown?"

I fixed my eyes on him.

"Mr. Foster, I just want to ask you one thing. If I'd flown, arrived the day before, gotten to the site before ten—what were the odds we'd have won the bid?"

He stopped talking.

I smiled, and it came out worse than crying.

"So. Whose fault are we here to pin this on?"

His face darkened.

"Judy, don't make trouble. The company isn't hurting for one project. Don't burn every bridge you've got."

I looked at him for a moment, said nothing, turned, and walked out.

At ten o'clock sharp, the conference room was already full.

Mr. Gilbert sat at the head of the table, Vice President Delgado on his left, then Madison, then the R&D director and the Sales director in order.

Trevor and I, along with a few others from Engineering, sat across from them.

It didn't feel like an accountability meeting. It felt like a tribunal.

Mr. Gilbert's face was dark. He threw the bid document down on the table.

"Sixty-eight million. Three months of four departments' blood and sweat. Over a million in up-front costs. And the bid fell through?"

Nobody spoke.

His eyes swept the room, and his finger rapped hard against the table.

"Somebody explain it to me. Why did we lose this bid?"