Chapter 8: Photo

The photograph was good, and that made me angrier than the email.

It showed a man in a wet gray shirt stepping out of my tower's side door at dawn.

His jacket hung over his arm, and his hair was a mess.

Anyone could see who he was, and anyone could see what he had been doing.

Roan read it over my shoulder, shirtless, with his chin on my head.

"Long lens," he said. "Across the street, second floor."

"Peyton hired someone."

"Peyton hired someone who sat there all night." His arms tightened around me. "Do you want me to go out the front door and wave?"

"I want you to put on a shirt," I said. "You're distracting."

"You started it."

"I did, and I'd do it again."

He kissed my temple, and I let myself have the moment.

Then I called Fran and told her to bring the board in at nine.

At nine, the nine board members sat around the long table.

Colin sat at the far end in the same navy suit.

Someone had asked him to attend as a "witness to the Chair's character."

I did not have to guess who.

The board member on my right was a heavy man with a pink face and a gold pen.

He was Maureen Coughlin's cousin by marriage, and he had spent two years nodding at every Olmstead memo and sending Maureen the minutes.

He held up a printed copy of Peyton's photograph.

"Chair, with respect," he said. "This is a morals matter."

"We cannot have the head of the company entertaining an investor in her father's private rooms."

"His name is Roan Billington," I said.

"I know who he is. He is a competitor."

"He is a prospective partner. And last night he was my guest."

A murmur went around the table.

The pink-faced man smiled with all his teeth.

"Your guest at six in the morning," he said.

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