Chapter 13 - This Time They AskedIn January, Derek Sloan returned.
No entourage.
No black SUV convoy.
Just one pickup with Martin and Nora.
They brought new site plans.
Derek laid them across the Dawson kitchen table.
“We moved the building.”
Emily studied the footprint.
Upper bench.
Farther northeast.
Better drainage.
He pointed toward another area.
“Retention pond.”
Emily frowned.
“That won’t hold water in August.”
Martin laughed.
Derek looked at him.
“What?”
“She’s done this before.”
Derek turned back to Emily.
“Why?”
“Gravel underneath.”
Nora opened her notebook.
“Evidence?”
Emily stood.
“Come outside.”
For an hour, Emily walked them across the farm boundary.
Frost pockets.
Spring seeps.
Places where snow melted early.
A ridge where lightning repeatedly hit the same cottonwood line.
Nora asked questions.
Emily answered what she knew.
When she did not know, she said:
“I don’t know.”
Martin noticed that too.
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Real expertise was not knowing everything.
It was knowing exactly where knowledge stopped.
