"Her job doesn't include sleeping with the people she's investigating."
"She wasn't investigating me. She was auditing my operation. There's a—" I stop myself. Take a breath. "Everything she found is real. I'll show you myself. Every tree, every record, every damn permit my grandfather ever filed."
"That won't be necessary." Martinez tucks the folder back under his arm. "Peterson arrives tomorrow. Ms. Cafferty, I expect you back in Portland by end of day."
He walks to his car without looking back. The engine starts. Gravel crunches under the tires as he pulls away.
Rowan still won't look at me.
"You called him," I say.
"I had to submit my preliminary findings. It's protocol."
"And you told him the operation was clean."
"Because it is."
"So why do you look like you just stabbed me?"
She finally meets my eyes. There are tears there. Unshed but visible. "Because my boss thinks I fucked my way to a favorable report. Because my career is probably over. Because I tried to do the right thing, and it blew up in my face."
"You did do the right thing."
"Did I?" She laughs, but there's no humor in it. "I compromised my objectivity, Ev. I let myself get involved with the subject of my audit. Everything I found, every positive thing I documented, is now suspect. Peterson's gonna come in here looking for problems because that's what Martinez expects him to find."
"Let him look. He won't find anything."
"You don't know that. You’ve said as much yourself"
"I know my operation."
"Do you know every form your father filed for thirty years? Every permit, every survey, every piece of paper in those boxes?" She shakes her head. "Nobody's that clean, Ev. There's always something. And now Peterson has a mandate to find it."
The words land like blows. Because she's right. I don't know everything my father did. There are boxes in that basement I haven't opened in years. Records I assumed were complete because I trusted him.
"So that's it?" My voice comes out rougher than I intend. "You're just gonna leave?"
"I don't have a choice."
"There's always a choice."
"Easy for you to say." She pulls her keys from her pocket. Her hands are shaking. "You're not the one whose career just imploded. You're not the one who has to explain to her supervisor why she was stupid enough to fall for a man she was supposed to be evaluating."
"Fall for." The words catch in my chest. "You said?—"
"I know what I said." She looks at me, and I see the walls going up. The professional mask sliding back into place. "I meant it. That's the problem."
I step toward her. She steps back.
"Don't," she says. "Please. I need to pack my things. I need to go back to Portland and figure out how to salvage what's left of my career. I can't do that if you're looking at me like?—"
"Like what?"
"Like I'm breaking your heart."
The admission is impossible to take back.
"You are," I say.
