Chapter 22: The Perp Walk

The press had been waiting in my lobby since eleven.

Bryce had invited them himself.

He had sent a note to six newspapers promising a statement on "the future of the Prescott Group."

They had come with cameras and long lenses, and stood in a crowd under my father's brass clock.

I rode the elevator down behind the officers with Eli on one side and Joan on the other.

The doors opened on the marble hall.

Flashes went off all across the hall.

"Mr. Danner! Mr. Danner, are you being arrested?"

"What are the charges?"

"Is it true you stole from your wife?"

Bryce walked between the officers with his chin high and his eyes front.

He was still wearing the charcoal suit.

The cuffs sat behind his back, and somebody had straightened his collar.

He had lost everything in the last hour.

For six years he had taught me never to let a room see that, and he didn't let them see it now.

The crowd parted for him.

It was a long walk across the lobby, past the front desk and the potted palms, with the pendulum swinging above them all.

I stopped at the foot of the stairs and let them go on without me.

Then a voice behind the reporters said, "Wait."

Camille came out of the crowd.

She wore a plain grey coat, with her hair loose and no makeup, and she held a single typed page in both hands.

She had signed it that morning at my lawyer's office, with a stranger beside her.

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