Chapter 14: What He Sold

Alden had known for an hour what he was going to do.

He knew it in the Throckmorton atrium, when Gordon held up the forged will and the cameras turned on a frightened old man.

He knew it in the car, when Lucinda sat with her phone in both hands and said nothing.

Her shares were frozen by midnight.

A judge signed the order on Gordon's motion, pending a hearing in three weeks.

Frozen shares could not vote at the board.

Gordon would run the company until the hearing, and by then he would have sold it for parts.

"Fourteen percent," Alden said.

They were at the penthouse table, and Lucinda looked up.

"What?"

"My father bought fourteen percent of Throckmorton Group in the nineties. It sits in a Ferrars holding company. It has a vote."

"I know what it is."

"A proxy would let you vote it."

She put the phone down.

"No."

"Lucinda."

"It's your company's only real asset outside the factories. Your board will never sign it over."

"Then I'll go and ask them."

"They'll take your chair."

"Yes," he said.

She looked at him for a long time.

"Why?"

"Because you spent three years keeping me alive. I'd like to spend one morning being useful."

"That isn't a reason. That's a speech."

"Then here's the reason." He pushed the single sheet across the table. "I already wrote the proxy."

She read it.

He watched her read.

She turned the page over to check the back.

It was blank.

"Sign it," he said. "You can tell me no afterwards."

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