Chapter 20: Three Hundred Witnesses

Neil walked down the center aisle with his phone held out in front of him.

He handed it to the young man at the sound desk and said something quiet.

The big screen behind the stage flickered. The foundation's logo went out.

A text thread filled the screen, three feet high, with a date at the top.

Alister: Nine o'clock tonight. Table by the window. Come say hello and be warm to her. She won't make a scene.

Carina: And if she does?

Alister: She's been taught not to.

I did not need to look at the screen. I looked at the room.

Three hundred people read it at the same time. I watched them reach the last line and read it again.

"That was sent on the afternoon of Mr. Hatherton's seventh wedding anniversary," Neil said. "To my wife."

Somebody gasped. A man near the front said, "Good God."

Alister took a step toward the sound desk.

"That's private," he said. "That's been taken out of context."

"Then give the context," Neil said. He kept his voice even. "I'll wait."

Alister opened his mouth and nothing came out.

"There are more," Neil said, and he turned to the room.

"Fourteen transfers out of the foundation's donor account, into my wife's sister's account. Eighty-eight thousand dollars so far."

The next page of the folder went up on the screen.

I heard the chairwoman say, "Carina?" in a very small voice.

Carina stood up at Table One.

I thought she would run.

She did not.

She put one hand flat on the table and said, in a voice that carried because she wasn't trying to make it carry: