Chapter 3 - Bay FourWalter Calder was waiting in Bay Four.
The machine was still there.
Callum stopped twenty feet away.
A forty-ton hydraulic forming press.
Yellow paint.
Black guards.
New control panel.
Same steel frame.
His stomach twisted.
Walter stood beside it with both hands in his jacket pockets.
“You shouldn't have brought Ivy into this.”
Callum stared.
“My daughter thinks baths cost fifty cents.”
Walter frowned.
“That was your mother.”
“You knew.”
“I knew Diane was teaching her about money.”
“She’s four.”
“She needs to learn sometime.”
Callum stepped closer.
“What happened here?”
Walter’s expression changed.
“Fifteen years ago?”
“Yes.”
“You know what happened.”
“I know what you told me.”
Walter’s jaw tightened.
“You bypassed the safety interlock.”
Callum stared at the press.
“I don’t remember doing that.”
“You were nineteen.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“You wanted production caught up before Friday.”
“At nineteen?”
“You were trying to impress me.”
Callum shook his head.
“No.”
“Marcus reached into the die. You cycled the machine.”
A flash.
Marcus screaming.
Callum remembered blood.
But not the button.
“I hit the emergency stop.”
“After.”
“Where were you?”
Walter went still.
“Office.”
Callum looked toward the glass supervisor’s office.
Something about the answer felt wrong.
Then a voice behind them said:
“That isn’t what you told me.”
Callum turned.
Jonah Lewis stood near a rolling toolbox.
Twenty-two.
Second-year apprentice.
Walter’s face hardened.
“This is private.”
Jonah ignored him.
He looked at the papers in Callum’s hand.
“Is that one of the agreements?”
Callum frowned.
“What agreement?”
Jonah opened his locker.
He pulled out a folded document.
Same heading.
FAMILY RESPONSIBILITY AGREEMENT.
Same language.
Jonah had been injured eight months earlier when a grinder wheel shattered.
Calder Mechanical paid his emergency room deductible.
Then Diane created a balance.
Protective goggles — $118
Lost production — $940
Medical advance — $2,300
Replacement wheel — $610
Total:
$3,968.
Jonah whispered, “They take eighty dollars out of every check.”
Callum looked at Walter.
“You do this to employees?”
Walter snapped, “We help them.”
“By billing injured apprentices?”
“They receive advances when banks would laugh them out of the building.”
Jonah said, “My balance went up last month.”
Callum looked at him.
“What?”
“They charged me an administrative fee.”
Walter stepped toward Jonah.
“Go back to work.”
Jonah did not move.
Callum asked, “How many people have these?”
Jonah looked around the shop.
Then said:
“Pretty much everyone under thirty.”
Callum stared at his father.
Walter’s face changed.
Not guilt.
Fear.
Callum held up his own agreement.
“Why is my balance exactly the same after almost thirty thousand dollars in deductions?”
Walter said nothing.
“Dad.”
Nothing.
Then Jonah spoke again.
“There’s something else you should know.”
Callum turned.
Jonah nodded toward the old hydraulic press.
“Your dad says you bypassed that safety switch.”
“Yes.”
Jonah swallowed.
“The maintenance guys still call that Walter’s bypass.”
Callum stopped.
“Why?”
Jonah looked at Walter.
“Because your father is the one who installed it.”
The next chapters are on the left side of your screen.
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