Antler Crown, Silent Departure novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Corner of the Check

Bridget's POV

The Riverfront Ballroom had forty round tables, a stage with a podium, and a banner that read Seventy Years of Brannigan Floor Supply.

The cabin had closed on Friday at ten, and by Saturday evening I had stopped checking my phone for it.

I sat at table four in a gray dress, with Dot on my left in her church hat and Poppy on my right.

Malcolm stood by the double doors at the back, in a dark suit, with his hands folded in front of him.

He had not looked at me once since I came in.

I knew that, because I had checked.

At seven o'clock Zack's father spoke for four minutes about the company, and the board clapped.

Then Zack walked onto the stage in a charcoal suit, with a white envelope in his hand and a smile that had been practiced in a mirror.

Lacey sat at table nine, in a red dress, beside a man with a board member's name tag.

She looked as though she belonged there.

"Before we eat," Zack said, "I'd like to make something right."

The room went quiet.

"Some of you were at the Larkmoor three Saturdays ago. Some of you saw a misunderstanding I'm not proud of. Bridget Blythe is here tonight, and I owe her twenty-three thousand four hundred dollars."

He held up the envelope.

"Bridge, would you come up?"

Dot squeezed my wrist.

I stood and walked to the stage, and it was the second time in a month I had crossed a room full of people in a dress.

Zack came down the three steps to meet me, and he pressed the envelope into my hand.

"All of it," he said softly. "Smile, would you? Everybody's watching."

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