Chapter 8: Her Mother

The marketing floor of Haldane Freight was one long open room with glass walls on the corner offices.

I had not been inside the building in four years.

The receptionist knew me and stood up too late to stop me.

"Mrs. Haldane, I'll call Ms. Wickham and let her know you're..."

"Thank you," I said, and kept walking.

Cynthia's office was the glass one at the end, with her name on the door in brushed steel.

She was on the phone with her ankles crossed under the desk.

When she saw me through the glass, she said something short into the receiver and hung up.

I opened the door and did not close it.

The staff on the floor stopped typing.

"Joanna," she said, rising with her hands open. "What a surprise. Is everything all right with the florist?"

"You're named as my proxy," I said.

Her face did not move.

"On forty percent of the company. In a form I never signed."

"That's an administrative matter. You'd have to speak to Russell."

"I'm speaking to you." I put the shareholder notice on her desk. "And I'm asking you one more thing."

"Of course."

"You have a birthmark on your left wrist."

She went still.

Not her face, which stayed pleasant, but her hand.

It had been resting on the desk beside her phone, and it slid slowly into her lap.

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