Chapter 4: Monday, Nine A.M.

At 8:50 on Monday morning, the security guard in the Lyle Group lobby told me my badge was dead.

I had known it would be.

I had walked past that desk every morning for four years.

The guard had a picture of his daughter taped to his monitor.

He wouldn't meet my eyes.

"Mr. Lyle gave an instruction, Ms. Heathcote," he said. "Saturday afternoon. I'm sorry."

"I'm a shareholder," I said.

"I know. I'm sorry."

Maxwell was late.

I stood by the elevators in a navy suit from a drawer at Winifred's.

I wondered if he had changed his mind.

"Ms. Heathcote?"

A young woman from the accounts team stood at the stairwell door with her badge already raised.

She was twenty-six. I had hired her in March.

"Staff stairs," she whispered. "He told everyone you quit, and nobody believed it."

I looked at the guard. He studied his monitor.

I took the stairs.

At the top of the stairs, the door to the boardroom stood open.

Preston was at the head of the long table with six department heads on either side of him.

He was in the middle of a sentence. "...and Hazel has stepped back for personal reasons. We'll respect her privacy."

Brooke sat at his right in a pale blue dress.

Around her neck was a double strand of pearls.

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