Director Quinn exhaled a long, ragged breath, the kind that left a man feeling no lighter than before. He shoved his phone into his pocket, smoothed the front of his jacket with a hand that wasn't quite steady, and then he was off, his polished shoes clattering down the staircase in a hurried, uneven rhythm that betrayed everything his composed face was trying to hide.
Governor Lawson had laid it out plainly enough. If the Park was being ordered to produce a conclusion, in writing, signed and sealed, then the authority to investigate Maxwell Crawford had to remain in the Park's own hands. That much was non-negotiable. And that line about keeping one eye on the social weather, that line about not allowing the engine to sputter, that was the true heart of the matter, the crux of the matter.
