The methodology is solid. The person executing it is…
The person executing it keeps doing things like tucking a strand of hair back with her pen without noticing, and turning to face me to ask a question and being slightly closer than either of us planned, and having hazel eyes that shift colour depending on whether we're in shadow or light.
At the fourth site she crouches to look at a low-slope junction and her jacket pulls up and there's a strip of skin at her lower back. I look away, feeling heat suddenly burst in me. Now that’s something that hasn’t happened in a while.
Her phone goes. She reads something, types back fast, doesn't break her pace. I find myself wondering who she's texting, even though I shouldn’t be.
We wrap the last site at five and I save Margaret Okafor for the end on purpose. She's seventy-three, widowed, on pension, thehouse her everything, and the storm took a quarter of her roof and collapsed her porch overhang. Her carrier has underpaid her twice in two years. I've been the one making up the gap.
I got there before Willa to walk Margaret through what to expect. I said: “This one's independent. I think she might be different.” I wasn't sure I believed it, but I want to.
Willa spends forty-five minutes at Margaret's property.
At the end of it: "Mrs. Okafor, I'm flagging your claim for supplemental review alongside the primary. There's soffit damage that appears to have been missed in a previous inspection — I can't guarantee the outcome, but I'm documenting everything and letting the full review team assess scope."
Margaret looks at her for a long moment. "Thank you," she says. Small voice. Big word.
Willa nods, businesslike, turns back to her notes. She lets out a tiny sound of relief.
On the sidewalk she says: "I'm not your enemy."
"Jury's out," I say.
She looks at me with her beautiful hazel eyes. "Fine. I'll send the assessments as I finalize them."
"I'll tell you if you miss something."
"I know you will." Not annoyed. Something else. "Eight tomorrow?"
"I'm on-site at six."
She picks up her bag. Pauses. "Six is fine."
I don't say anything.
She gets in her car and I stand on the sidewalk and watch it go.
I believe her. That's the uncomfortable part. I've believed adjusters before and been wrong and the distance between Margaret Okafor and a reduced claim is the quality of Willa Frost's judgment and the goodwill of her company. I'm standingon a sidewalk in the flat grey end of afternoon, thinking about hazel eyes and wishing those were better odds.
three
Willa
Mycompany'sregionaldirectorcalls while I'm eating a granola bar in my car outside the Timberline Motel.
"The Silver Ridge portfolio is running thirty-two percent above projected claim value," Ian says. "The carrier is querying the McDougall scope."
"The McDougall property has a legitimate full replacement claim on the north slope and I documented it correctly. The preliminary estimate was done from satellite imagery and a two-year-old file. The actual damage is higher because the preliminary was wrong, not because I'm generous."
We fight for both claims. I win the Hancock property, full scope. The McDougall comes back at sixty-five percent.
There's a gap. I know, without calculating it, who will fill it.
I call Atlas.
He picks up on the second ring. "McKay."
"It's Willa. The McDougall claim came back partial. Sixty-five percent of the north slope."
