"Who told you that?"
"I have friends in operations."
"Then ask them why a safety report was closed without answering its question."
He examined her face and lowered his voice. "There are people who have invested years of their lives in this reopening. Please don't let a schoolgirl's curiosity become a public embarrassment."
Anika waited until he moved aside. "Curiosity isn't the embarrassment, Mr. Dane," she said. "It never has been." She continued down the corridor, leaving him standing under a lamp shaped like a small golden sun. At the end of the train, thunder spread across the mountains, and something in the track's steady song changed key.
CHAPTER 05
THE PRICE OF OPENING NIGHT
Sterling Dane stood in the empty smoking lounge, which had not permitted smoking for decades, and watched rain hammer the black windows. A portrait of the railway's founder hung above a cabinet of unused crystal. The man's expression suggested confidence in things he had never personally built. Sterling had paid for the restoration of this carriage, and he wondered if the portrait could be removed without attracting comment.
His phone lit with a message from Lyle Harker: WE NEED A QUIET NIGHT. Sterling had heard the sentence many times during the project. It had been used to explain delayed maintenance records, smaller contingency budgets, and a publicity schedule that left no room for unscripted events. He had not designed the railway and he did not oversee safety, but the consortium's financing agreement included a bonus if the inaugural service operated before the winter bond review.
Sterling remembered the board's most recent meeting in Northport. A director had asked whether the drainage system required another independent inspection before opening. Harker had described the existing certification, and a lawyer had said the company was entitled to rely on it. Nobody had asked whether the certification covered equipment installed after the drawings were revised. The minutes recorded the answer as reassurance. Sterling had signed the document without opening its attachments. He had been thinking about hotel bookings and regional employment figures, both real concerns, while the smaller technical questions slipped into a different person's folder. He was not sure whether the decision had been ordinary negligence or something more troubling. He had spent his career telling teams to avoid making problems larger than necessary. He wondered whether those instructions had taught his managers to shrink the evidence, rather than face the complicated problems directly and promptly.
He told himself that the bonus was deserved. Without investors, the old line would have stayed closed; hotels in Northport would still stand empty, and villages along the mountains would keep losing young workers. Public good and private gain were not enemies. He had said that at every ceremony. Tonight, though, the words had begun to sound less like a principle than a shield.
Harker entered without knocking. "The student is asking questions," he said.
"Students ask questions. That is apparently what schools are for."
"This one is talking to a reporter."
Sterling looked away from the window. "Then answer accurately."
"You make that sound simple."
Harker placed a tablet on the table. The infrastructure dashboard displayed Rook Cut in green, but an attached service note described a pending manual verification. He explained that the old float gauge had produced unreliable readings, the replacement instrument had passed factory calibration, and the field team had signed the sector open. Sterling asked why anybody was still arguing.
"Because one inspector thinks the sump is rising," Harker replied. "He is young. He's anxious."
"Young doesn't make a person wrong."
Harker smiled unpleasantly. "That wisdom arrived late in the evening."
Sterling thought of Mina standing beside his briefcase, asking him to move it. He had resented her certainty because she possessed something he could not buy: a straightforward claim that required no explanation. His own authority on this train was made from meetings, promises, signatures, and the continuing approval of people who could withdraw it. He knew that, and hated being reminded.
"If there's a valid warning, stop the train," he said at last.
"You'll be the first to explain the cancellation to our lenders? The bank's observers are sitting three tables away. A delay on opening night will make tomorrow's headline. The village contracts depend on our credibility."