Chapter 19: The Annual Meeting

The Cranmer family office takes up the whole thirty-eighth floor of a granite tower on State Street.

I had been inside it once, at nine years old, to see my father's name on a door.

Rafe walked me to the elevator at five to ten and stopped at the lobby desk.

"I'll be here," he said.

"You can come up."

"I'm not on the board. I'm not family."

He straightened my collar, which didn't need it.

"I'll be here when you come down," he said.

I went up alone, in a navy suit I had bought on Friday.

The brass key was in my jacket pocket.

The boardroom was long and quiet, with a table of dark wood and a wall of windows over the harbor.

Seven people in grey sat along both sides, and they stopped talking when I came through the door.

My father sat at the head.

Danielle sat at his right hand in a black dress, with her hands folded, and did not look at me.

A white-haired woman at the far end stood.

"Ms. Cranmer. I'm the chair of the board. Thank you for coming."

"Of course."

"Please." She nodded at the empty chair at my father's left.

I sat down.

"The annual meeting will come to order," said the chair. "There is one item."

She looked at my father.

"Martin."

My father did not rise.

"Seven years ago," he said, "I offered my younger daughter the key to this family.

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