Love After Layoffs novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Scaifes

On Tuesday at nine the boardroom on the fifty-first floor held fourteen people and one empty chair.

Alvin had asked me to sit at the foot of the table, beside Brooks, where the whole board could see my face.

Savannah's father sat three seats from the head, with his silver hair combed and his gold pin on his lapel.

He still looked sure of himself.

He had not seen the folder yet.

Alvin slid a copy to the man on his left, and a copy went down each side of the table.

Paper rustled around the room.

"Item one," Alvin said. "The photographs."

"I'll save you the trouble of reading it all."

"Read the first page, and then look at who signed it."

"The first check was drawn on the Scaife Family Trust."

Savannah's father took the page in front of him.

I watched his eyes go down it, and I watched them stop.

"This is a signature," he said.

"It's your daughter's."

"She signs for the trust on my authority."

"Then you authorized a payment to a man named in this thread."

"I did no such thing."

"Daddy, it was a misunderstanding."

The voice came from the doorway.

Savannah stood there in a dove-gray suit, with her hair in its low knot and her gold bangle on.

Two guards had walked her up, and she did not seem to see them.

"A misunderstanding," her father said slowly.

"I hired a security consultant for Brooks's protection, and I didn't know how he would behave."

"The man says you told him to shoot a bed."

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