Chapter 22: The Cable

Greer's POV

At ten the next morning two men from maintenance rolled my father's computer into the boardroom on a cart.

It was a beige tower with a thick monitor, and it had sat on the third floor under a plastic cover for two years.

They set it at the end of the walnut table and ran a cable up to the wall screen.

Seven directors watched in silence.

Behind them, along the back wall, sat a dozen dealers I had called myself.

The Muskegon family was in the front, the old man in his wheelchair with his oxygen, one son on each side.

My phone stood on the table, plugged into the same cable, with a small red dot lit above the lens.

The board chair had agreed to stream the meeting to every dealer account we had.

By ten past, the counter in the corner said eleven thousand people were watching.

Tate came in last.

He wore the grey suit and carried a black binder against his chest.

Valeria followed him in her green cardigan with her eyes on the floor.

"Before we begin," Tate said, "I'd like to put on the record that this is a ridiculous stunt."

"Noted," said the chair.

"The transfer agreements are here." He laid the binder on the table and opened it.

"Signed by Greer's father, witnessed, filed. Harmon Ventures holds seventeen percent of this company."

"May I see the signature?" I said.

"Of course."

I slid the binder down the table to the old dealer's son.

"Look at the loop on the capital D," I said.

He looked.

"There," I said. "The pen has been lifted twice."

"It's a bad pen," Tate said.

"My father signed every check in this building for forty years, and he never lifted the pen in the D."

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