“The carbon logs will speak for both of us.”

By five thirty that evening, two brass desk lamps were lit inside the Strasburg site office, throwing warm yellow circles across the long oak table.

Martha sat at the far end of the table, pressing red adhesive index tabs onto the top edges of twelve collated file folders.

Beside her, Brenda slid verified bank microfilms into protective plastic sleeves, matching check serial number four-zero-nine against the line items in her accounting ledger.

Nathaniel unlocked the small iron wall safe behind his drafting desk and took out a flat metal box of job site releases from the previous month.