Her own badge was still suspended. To see Vivian, Nina signed in as a visitor.
The security man looked at the name, then at her. He was the one who had helped free the strap of her bag from the chair. Nina gave him the identification she still possessed. He made the call, waited for an answer and gave her a temporary pass.
“Someone will take you up.”
“I know the way.”
“I know you do.”
She looked at him and managed a small smile. He didn't try to make the rule sound personal. The elevator arrived, and the employee who'd been sent to escort her stood aside to let her enter first.
People saw Nina from their desks. One woman began to raise a hand, then apparently remembered she didn't know what sort of return this was. Nina raised hers. The woman answered, relieved, and looked back at her work.
Vivian's office door was open. She stood when Nina reached it.
“Thank you,” she told the escort. “I'll bring her down.”
The door remained ajar until Vivian closed it herself. She didn't offer coffee.
Nina kept standing by the visitor chair. She'd left her statement and the supplier terms with people outside the building. The folder she carried contained only the limited copies she intended to discuss.
“You asked to see me,” Vivian said.
“I want you to withdraw the supplier dispute. In writing, to the recipients. Without making Beth or Adam say anything for it.”
Vivian put her hand on the back of the couch. “You've made it very difficult for me to do something quietly.”
“It wasn't quiet when I couldn't get into my account.”
“You could still get help.”
“From you.”
Vivian looked away. She seemed tired in a way Nina had rarely been allowed to see. Her desk held a cold drink, three phones, a small stack of notes with corners turned over. A phone vibrated against the wood. Vivian silenced it without reading the screen.
“Northreach has put the disputed route on hold,” Nina said. “They're keeping the ordinary work moving. You don't have to keep sending the claim about me.”
“Northreach will be back asking for help when their queue doubles.”
“They may ask someone else.”
Vivian's hand tightened on the couch.
“You think you're the first person to discover things aren't pure? We built a way to keep people from getting trapped by an old address, a broken record, a man insisting he had a right to know. There were people we helped when nobody else would bother.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Or did you decide none of them count once you found a client you didn't approve of?”
Nina felt the pull of the argument. Beth had used the private help. She had wanted a room. She had known compromises Nina still hadn't begun to understand. The good had existed; Vivian was reaching for it like a heavy thing she could set over the rest.
“They count,” Nina said. “So do the people you sold it to who wanted to find them.”
“You don't know everyone we turned away.”
“I know who got Beth's address.”
Vivian let go of the couch and went to the window. A delivery van was reversing below. Nina could hear the faint warning sound through the glass.
“I remember you in that hospital,” Vivian said. “Your father's bag. The charger you kept forgetting. You were trying to stay awake and be useful because you thought if you stopped, something would happen.”
Nina looked at the chair. She could see herself younger in it, grateful enough to say yes before she'd heard the question.
“You asked Iris whether she wanted to go home,” she said.
“Yes.”
“I kept telling you why neither of us could leave.”
“You needed somebody to take the decision away from you for a minute.”
“You didn't. You asked her. You let her answer.”
Vivian turned. “I made sure you were both looked after.”
“That's what I remember. Not you knowing everything. You hearing her when I wouldn't.”
Something moved in Vivian's face, a recognition she didn't want to hold. She went behind her desk and touched one of the phones, then left it where it was.
“Was that kindness real?” Nina asked.
“You keep asking me that as if I can produce a receipt for it.”
“I believed it. I still do.”
“Then why are you here doing this to me?”
Nina looked at her for a long time. It was the question underneath every other one, finally said without a careful cover.
“Because you can't use it to decide the rest of my life.”
Vivian laughed once, without amusement. “The rest of your life. I asked a man to meet you. He chose to stay. You chose him. Six years, Nina. Would you like me to apologize for the six years too?”
“No.”
That stopped her.
“I want the choice I didn't get to have. I can't get it back. I can still decide what I do now.”
“And what is that?”
“Ask you to stop the claim you authorized. Keep giving the actual records. Let Beth choose who can contact her. Let Adam answer for himself.”
“He'll answer in whatever way keeps you looking at him.”
Nina felt it hit. She didn't defend him. Vivian watched, waiting for the wound to make an opening.
“Maybe,” Nina said.
“You canceled my viewing,” Nina said. “You made him the person who could let me in. I still have to decide which of his answers I believe.”
“And you'll hate me for making that difficult.”
“I don't know what I'll feel tomorrow.”
Vivian sat down hard enough that the chair moved back. She pushed the cold drink farther from the keyboard.
“I can withdraw the supplier dispute,” she said.
Nina put the relevant notice on the desk. “This one. To everyone it went to.”
“It won't give you everything back.”
“I know.”
Vivian opened a page on her own machine. Nina could see only the reflected light, not what she was doing. It was the first time she'd wanted to stand behind Vivian and watch the exact movement of her hands.
“Send me the confirmation,” she said.
Vivian looked up. “You don't trust me to do it.”
“Send it.”
Her phone sounded a moment later. A received instruction to retract the supplied dispute, the same incident reference, sent to the participating recipients. Nina read it. A private claim being withdrawn by a woman with authority over that private claim. It didn't erase what had happened. She kept the message.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Don't.”
They looked at each other across the desk.
A message appeared on Vivian's screen. She glanced at it and then read more carefully. Nina saw her expression sharpen before she turned back.
“What have you told Helen about management approval?”
“What I received. The sponsor account on my notice. The references Adam supplied.”
“She has the retraction now.”
“Yes.”
“Then why is she asking this?”
Nina didn't answer for a moment. Vivian rotated the screen just enough for her to see a portion of the client question. It asked whether the disputed exceptions had been approved within management's authority or supplied outside it, and requested the basis for either account. It named the source work Helen had preserved.
“Because the retraction doesn't answer it,” Nina said.
“I've just done what you asked.”
“I asked you to retract a claim about me.”
Vivian turned the screen away. “They're continuing to use us for ordinary work. They know perfectly well what we supply.”
“They're not continuing this part until they know who stood behind it.”
“You mean until someone gives them a person they can say stood behind it.”
Nina put the relevant notice back in her folder. Her hand was shaking, though the retraction was in her phone and she'd already checked it twice.
“Adam has given his account. Gavin is giving his.”
“And now every contractor's recollection becomes a management decision?”
“No. Helen has to ask what was authorized. You can give her your answer.”
Vivian looked at the client question again. “She's asking for the basis. She doesn't get to keep changing what the question is after I've answered.”
“You haven't answered that one.”
The phone sounded again. Vivian pressed the button on its side so hard it clicked against the desk.
“I can give them contractor misconduct,” she said. “I can give them the steps we took to correct it. They can keep the services that actually work.”
“Then let them decide from the records.”
“That's what people say when they know somebody else has to make a business function on Monday.”
Nina could see Helen at the cabinet with Ruth's list, deciding whose calls she would take. She did not describe it. Vivian looked back at the question, and Nina closed the folder.
“Don't make me a stranger who held a door,” Vivian said. “I know you. I've watched you build a life. When something goes wrong you'll still reach for the people who know what to do.”
Nina picked up her folder. “Then they can ask what I want.”
She opened the door herself.
In the corridor Ethan was speaking with someone near the printer. He saw her and fell silent. Nina didn't ask for anything. She nodded and kept walking.
Vivian came out behind her, perhaps to escort her down as promised. They reached the elevator together. For several seconds they stood side by side watching the floor numbers change.
“Be careful,” Vivian said.
Nina turned toward her.
The doors opened. Two people got out, discussing lunch. Nina moved aside and let them pass before entering.
“You too,” she said.
Downstairs she surrendered the visitor pass. The security man took it and told her to have a good day with an automatic courtesy that was almost kind. Nina went outside into a day nobody could promise her.
She forwarded the retraction confirmation through the existing channels. She told Helen and Waymark what she'd received, without asking either to treat it as a complete repair. Then she called the officer and said where she'd been and what Vivian had done.
Adam's message arrived as she put the car in drive. The meeting with Gavin was set for the shared workshop's ordinary desk-clearing period. The exact place and window had gone to the officer; the copies Gavin owned were already being sent. Adam would call Nina when they were together if she wanted to hear his acknowledgment to Gavin himself.
She parked again to answer.
I want you to say what's true. I'll listen if Gavin agrees.
Then she sat for a moment with both hands on the wheel, trying to understand why the first thing she'd wanted to do after leaving Vivian was tell Adam about it.