I opened the Toyota’s door, slid in behind the wheel, and pulled the door shut until the latch caught with a solid metallic click.

By two o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, I had set up a working desk in the spare bedroom of Monica’s house in Sacramento.

Three blue vinyl project binders sat lined up beside my engineering logbook, their edges squared neatly with the laminate tabletop.

David Miller called my work line at six minutes past two, the caller ID showing our Seattle headquarters.

“Iris,” David said, his voice slow and even over the speakerphone.