CHAPTER TEN — THE UNFINISHED ROUTE
Nadine had completed her preliminary figures when a former shuttle driver named Isaac Bell requested a meeting at the church.
He refused to speak by telephone because a dispatcher had told him all work calls were recorded.
Khloe brought coffee and found Isaac standing near the back door with an envelope of weekly schedules.
He had resigned from WinterBridge two months earlier after a disagreement with a supervisor over a dangerous shortcut.
He said the company’s charts failed to show where drivers were actually forced to stop.
Beatrice asked him to explain the shortcut.
Isaac drew three intersecting streets on a sheet of butcher paper.
The approved route included a hospital entrance, a sheltered public library stop, and a residential turnaround.
The revised route bypassed the library and ended beside the freight depot.
Drivers had complained that passengers with mobility problems could not safely cross the depot road.
A supervisor had instructed them to use the shortcut anyway because it reduced reported travel time.
Isaac said drivers who refused were marked late even when their buses reached every authorized stop.
Nadine checked the schedules against the route documents supplied by WinterBridge.
The company had recorded the change as a temporary diversion for road repairs.
Isaac said the repairs had finished six weeks earlier.
Beatrice asked whether he could prove the road was open.
Isaac said he could identify the contractor and the date the barriers disappeared.
Khloe volunteered to visit the location with Beatrice and a transportation advocate.
Nadine cautioned them against entering depots or attempting to conduct an unofficial safety inspection.
Khloe agreed they would use public sidewalks and speak only to people willing to talk.
They reached the library stop at seven that evening.
The shelter’s roof was intact, and a freshly painted bus lane ran directly beside it.
An illuminated information screen listed several public routes but omitted WinterBridge.
A library worker told them the private shuttle had stopped visiting months earlier.
She had watched older passengers wait under the shelter until closing time, unaware that their pickup point had moved.
Khloe asked whether the library had been notified.
The worker said a single printed notice had arrived after the change and had been removed because it lacked an effective date.
Beatrice photographed the public stop information while the advocate recorded the worker’s account.
They walked toward the freight depot using the sidewalk on the opposite side of the road.
At the designated replacement stop, snow had piled against the curb where a wheelchair ramp should have lowered.
The nearest crosswalk lay a long distance downhill.
A woman in a nursing uniform stood near the sign with her hood pulled tightly around her face.
She said the last shuttle had driven past without stopping because a delivery truck blocked the curb.
Khloe asked whether she had contacted dispatch.
The woman showed her a message advising her to proceed to the next pickup point.
That point was nearly a mile away.
Beatrice called the public emergency assistance line listed by the transportation authority for stranded riders.
A dispatcher answered and arranged a safe alternative ride.
Khloe remained with the nurse until the vehicle arrived.
The driver asked why the pickup information still directed passengers to a blocked stop.
The nurse said she had been asking the same question for months.
Isaac arrived after finishing his shift at a different company.
He stood beside the replacement sign and shook his head.
He explained that the shortcut looked efficient on a map because it ignored where a bus could safely pull over.
The advocate asked him to provide a signed account to Nadine rather than make accusations in front of the passengers.
Isaac agreed.
Before leaving, he pointed to an ordinary streetlight outside the depot.
He said it had been broken when WinterBridge moved the stop and had remained dark through most of the winter.
A city repair crew had fixed it only the previous week after residents repeatedly complained.
Khloe realized the problem was more than imaginary trips in a computer system.
People had made real journeys through streets that had been treated as meaningless spaces between points on a chart.
The next morning, Nadine requested an independent accessibility assessment of every altered stop.
WinterBridge initially objected that the scope of the review concerned reporting accuracy rather than infrastructure.
The transportation authority disagreed and ordered the assessment as a condition of the temporary operating arrangement.
Khloe watched the decision arrive in writing and felt a small measure of relief.
Isaac called her that afternoon and said he had worried his testimony would be dismissed because he no longer worked for the company.
She said the dates and specific locations mattered more than whether his name appeared on the current staff list.
He admitted he had spent weeks blaming himself for not speaking sooner.
Beatrice took the telephone and told him there was still work he could do now.
Isaac promised to attend the next rider meeting and answer questions about the routes he knew.
