Chapter 13: The Same Table

Daniel's POV

The head of finance texted me at six on Friday.

Brodie has three directors at the Harbor Grill. Same table as August. He's calling it a family conversation.

I read it in my kitchen, where Susannah was pressing a black dress for the gala.

"I owe the Harbor Grill a sentence," I told her. "Don't come."

She looked up from the iron.

"Is it a long sentence?"

"It's short."

"Then go say it."

I got there at seven-thirty.

Brodie sat in the middle of the back booth in a navy jacket, with Esther's lawyer on his left.

Three directors sat across from them with their bread untouched, and the head of finance sat at the end.

All four had been at this table in August.

I pulled a chair over from the next table and sat down.

"Daniel," said the oldest director. "This is a private dinner."

"It's the same dinner," I said.

Brodie smiled with every tooth.

"Pull up a chair, Daniel. Oh. You did."

"Mr. Reeve," the lawyer said, "this is a governance matter and you are not a party to it."

"I'm a witness."

I looked at the three directors.

"In August, Susannah left this table with a migraine. Do you remember what Brodie said after she was gone?"

Nobody answered.

The head of finance studied the tablecloth.

"He said she was his little project that pays," I said. "He said to give it two years and the company would be theirs."

The lawyer said, "That is hearsay, and it is irrelevant."

"I remember it," said the youngest director.

He put his fork down.

"I remember all of it," said the woman beside him. "Then he told a golf story, and I laughed so nobody had to answer him."

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