Chapter 4: The Nameplate

I wore the gray suit.

I walked into the Aspinwall Capital boardroom at five to nine on Monday and did not go to the notes chair against the wall.

The long table was already set.

At the foot, where the visiting side sat, a small brass plate stood on the wood.

T. Brennan. Costello Properties.

I put my folder down beside it and sat.

Rhys Balfour came in with two coffees, one in each hand, the way he had every Monday for four years.

Rhys was Porter's finance chief and had been his friend since college. He was a rumpled man with wire glasses and an honest face.

He stopped at the door when he saw me.

He looked at the brass plate. He looked at my folder.

"Tash," he said carefully. "Is that where you're sitting?"

"For now."

He handed me the second coffee anyway and took the chair across from me.

He didn't ask anything else. I noticed that, and I remembered it.

Porter walked in at nine with two of his executives behind him.

He was reading a message on his phone and talking.

"Costello's junior can have fifteen minutes, then we get to the real numbers. Tash, did you bring the packet?" He stopped.

His eyes went to the brass plate and stayed there.

"Who moved the notes chair?"

"No one moved it," I said. "It's against the wall where it always is."

"You're in the wrong seat."

"I'm in the seat with my name on it."

A silence went down the table.

Porter's smile arrived late, thin and tight.

"Funny," he said. "Whose joke is this? Rhys?"

"Not mine," Rhys said.

The door opened again.

Byron Costello walked in in shirtsleeves, with his lawyer at his shoulder.

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