CHAPTER FOURTEEN A — THE HOURS THAT DISAPPEARED
The wage interviews were held at the training center on a Tuesday when the first hard frost appeared on the windows.
Saira had arranged separate appointments so none of the apprentices would feel obliged to support another person’s account.
Ethan arrived with Rosa because she wanted to clarify the hours she had supervised in the kitchen.
An investigator named Dana Phelps met them in a small room overlooking the parking lot.
She placed a blank schedule on the table rather than beginning with Victor’s signed reports.
“I want to hear what you remember before we compare it with anything,” Dana said.
Rosa began with the Saturday brunch shifts.
She remembered that Nico always arrived before the breakfast cooks because Victor assigned him the delivery door.
Ethan remembered seeing Nico carry crates into the cooler while the rest of the street was still dark.
“Did he receive instruction during those shifts?” Dana asked.
“Not from me,” Rosa answered.
“I was cooking breakfast for paying customers.”
Dana wrote the distinction carefully.
Then she asked Ethan whether he could confirm every date Nico had listed.
“No,” he replied.
“I wasn’t scheduled for some of them.”
He felt ashamed until Dana said that uncertainty was useful when it was accurate.
“We need witnesses to tell us what they know, not what would be convenient,” she explained.
Nico arrived after them, carrying his mother’s calendar and a pair of shoes with splitting soles.
He described a night when Victor kept him after closing to scrub a grease trap.
Rosa remembered the task because she had objected to assigning it without training or protective equipment.
Dana did not interrupt as Nico explained how he had missed the last bus and walked almost three miles home.
“Why didn’t you leave when your shift ended?” she asked.
“He said he would mark me absent for the whole day.”
“Did you believe him?”
“He was the person who signed everything.”
Ethan watched Nico rub his thumb over the torn edge of his notebook.
The pressure of that simple answer filled the room more completely than any accusation.
After Nico left, Dana asked Rosa about Victor’s practice of changing scheduled hours after a shift.
Rosa explained that printed rosters were often replaced on Monday mornings.
She had begun photographing them because employees repeatedly argued about missing hours.
“I did it for myself at first,” she admitted.
“You don’t have to apologize for that,” Dana said.
Rosa handed over the pictures along with dates she could identify.
One image showed Lacey listed for a shift during which she had been visiting her hospitalized mother.
Dana enlarged the picture and studied the handwriting.
“That appears to have been added after the photograph was taken,” she said.
“Can you tell?” Ethan asked.
“I can see differences, but I’m not an examiner,” Dana answered.
“We’ll ask for the original records rather than drawing a conclusion from this alone.”
The reply frustrated Ethan because the photographs seemed so obvious to him.
Then he remembered how Victor had tried to turn a free bowl of stew into a theft accusation.
A fact that felt obvious could still be twisted if nobody took time to establish it properly.
Outside the room, Lacey was waiting with her aunt.
She had brought a small plastic folder of notes and payroll messages.
“I’m scared I’ll say something wrong,” she whispered.
Ethan sat beside her.
“Then say you don’t remember when you don’t remember,” he answered.
“They won’t be angry?”
“Dana wasn’t angry at me.”
Lacey nodded but kept both hands wrapped around the folder.
When her name was called, she stood so quickly that she knocked over a chair.
Her aunt steadied it and walked with her to the doorway.
Ethan listened as the door closed and wished he could make the next hour easier.
He could not speak for Lacey, and the realization was a difficult kind of relief.
At noon, Dana invited the students to return for an explanation of what would happen to their statements.
She said the agency would review business records and seek a response from Victor.
She explained that the students might need to answer more questions and could request assistance understanding official notices.
Nico asked whether the investigation could stop Victor from hiring other trainees.
Dana said the apprenticeship center had already suspended the placement, while broader employment enforcement was a separate decision.
“That means he can still hire someone who doesn’t know,” Nico said.
“He can operate while the matter is reviewed unless another authority acts,” Dana answered.
“That’s not a promise that he has done nothing wrong.”
Rosa looked at the students.
“I should have told you how to check your pay from the first week,” she said.
Nico shook his head.
“He should have paid us from the first week.”
Nobody argued with him.
That evening, Ethan wrote Dani a message saying the interviews had finished.
She replied with a picture of their grocery list and three words.
Bring home milk.
He smiled because the world was still full of ordinary responsibilities that could not wait for an investigation.
