After Henry left to greet the quartet, Mara found Jaz alone in the service bay, wiping her hands on a rag that had seen better days. The 1967 coupe stood beside her, its door open, its restored interior glowing warm in the workshop light. Tan leather, neat stitching, a dashboard polished until it looked new without looking fake.
"Jaz," Mara said, "can I see it up close?"
Jaz nodded, suddenly shy. "I did the seats myself. And the door panels. It took me three weeks, nights included."
Mara ran a hand along the seam. "This is beautiful work."
"No one taught me," Jaz said. "I practiced on scraps. I ruined a panel once and started over."
Mara kept her voice gentle. "Tell me about Ryan and this car."
Jaz looked at the floor. "A customer brought the coupe in last month. He wanted the interior saved, not replaced. Rosa gave the job to me."
"And?" Mara said.
"And I did it," Jaz said. "Every stitch. I stayed late. When it was done, Rosa took photos for the shop board."
Mara nodded. "Your name was on them, was it not?"
"It was," Jaz said. "Until Ryan took them down."
"What do you mean?" Mara asked.
Jaz swallowed. "He told a customer it was his restoration. He told Rosa he had supervised every step, which is not true. He barely came into the bay. Then he told me, in front of two other salesmen, that apprentices do not get credit."
"Did you answer him?" Mara asked.
"I tried," Jaz said. "I said I did the work. He laughed and said no one would believe a nineteen year old over a senior salesman."
Mara felt a slow heat rise in her chest, but she kept her face calm. "Jaz, look at me. Do you have proof?"
Jaz opened a drawer and pulled out a small notebook, full of dates, sketches, and notes in her neat handwriting.
"Every day," Jaz said. "What I did, what went wrong, what I fixed. Rosa saw me here. So did the customer."
"Why did you not come to Rosa sooner?" Mara asked.
"I did," Jaz said quietly. "Rosa believed me. She put my name back on the board. But Ryan told the customer a different story, and Rosa did not want a fight before Henry's party."
Mara closed the notebook and handed it back. "Rosa was trying to protect the day. But you should not have to wait for fairness."
Jaz blinked hard. "I do not want trouble, Ms. Winters. I just want my work to have my name on it."
"It will," Mara said firmly. "Credit theft tells a young person that her hands do not matter. That is not how Vantara works."
The bay door opened, and Maddox walked in, talking loudly on his phone about a commission. He stopped when he saw them beside the coupe.
"Well, well," he said, slipping his phone into his pocket. "Admiring my restoration? The customer loved it. He said it was the best work he had seen in years."
Jaz went still. Mara turned slowly.
"Your restoration?" Mara said, her voice pleasant and calm. "Tell me, Ryan, what thread did you use on the seats?"
Maddox blinked. "What?"
"The thread," Mara said. "What color? What weight? How many stitches per inch?"
"I supervised it," he said quickly. "I do not memorize thread counts."
"Jaz does," Mara said. "She can tell you every one. Because she did the work."
Maddox forced a laugh. "With respect, ma'am, you are event help. You do not know how this shop runs."
Mara smiled, but her eyes did not. "I know enough to know when a man is standing beside work he did not do, taking praise that is not his."
"Ryan," Jaz said, her voice shaking but clear, "please stop saying it is yours. Please."
Maddox looked from Jaz to Mara, and for a moment his confidence slipped. Then he recovered, straightened his jacket, and said, "I have clients to call. We will talk about this later."
"No," Mara said softly. "We will talk about it today. After Henry has his moment. But we will talk about it, and Jaz will be in the room."
He left without another word. The bay felt quieter, and also larger, as if the air had changed.
Jaz exhaled. "Thank you," she said. "No one has ever said that to him for me."
Mara put a hand on her shoulder. "You did the hard part, Jaz. You kept the notebook. You kept showing up. Do not let anyone rewrite that."
Jaz nodded, and for the first time that morning, she smiled without apology. "Can I show you the door panel?" she asked. "The stitching there was the hardest."
"Show me," Mara said. "I want to see all of it."
Chapter 12: Henry's Last Day