Chapter 5: The Tower

The Corwin Harbor boardroom was on the fortieth floor, with a glass wall and a view of the river.

A dozen men and two women sat at a table long enough to land a plane on.

They all looked at me when I came in.

Bram had warned me in the car that Torben would call this a "welcome."

He had not warned me it would feel like a trial.

"Miss Tierney," Torben said, rising from the head of the table.

"We're so glad you could join us on a Monday."

"I was told it was a family matter."

"It's a family company."

He gestured to the chair beside him, and Bram took the one across.

A tall man with a pink face leaned back and looked me over.

"So this is the girl from Gary," he said.

"I looked it up on the way in. It's near the steel mills, isn't it?"

A few people smiled into their coffee.

"Does a place like that even have indoor plumbing?" the pink man said.

I turned my head and looked at him for a long, quiet moment.

I let the silence go on until the smiling stopped.

"It has plumbing," I said. "I'm told it had a lot more before the mills closed."

He opened his mouth.

"You've got a daughter at Northwestern, haven't you?" I said.

His mouth stayed open.

"I read the board's bios this morning. She was arrested in March for selling pills in a dorm."

The room went absolutely still.

"It was dropped," the pink man whispered.

"Because you called the right friend."

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