A Decade For Nothing novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: Her Turn at the Microphone

She did not read from notes.

"I said it to the man I'd loved for ten years," Lydia told the ballroom. "He stood there, holding my hand, and asked me what was wrong."

Nobody coughed or shifted a chair.

"He was innocent. I was told he wasn't by two people I trusted more than I trusted him. One of them is sitting in the front row."

Gordon had not moved.

"Dad, I'd like you to hear this with everyone else," she said, and nodded toward the sound booth.

The slideshow of ribbon cuttings went black.

Gordon's voice came out of a hundred speakers in the ceiling, calm and pleasant.

Two hundred thousand dollars. Wired the day you sign. Another fifty when you've been out of Ohio for six months.

A woman near me put her hand on her chest.

You lose the job. Your grandmother loses whatever part of that pension she's been borrowing against.

Beside me, Nan folded her hands on the tablecloth and watched the stage without blinking.

The recording ended, and the screen lit up with a screenshot dated March 11.

Book 1412 for the 18th. Use his name. Call as a woman who's done it before.

Lydia held up a small cream-and-gold cardboard sleeve.

"This was in the pocket of Levi's coat," she said. "The coat was in my father's study. That's my father's handwriting."

Gordon stood.

"My daughter has not been well," he said, to the room, smoothly. "These are fabrications. I'm so sorry you've had to see it. Security."

Nobody in the room moved.

The board chair, in her silver dress, had risen from table one with her napkin still in her hand.

"Sit down, Gordon," she said.

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