Chapter 12: The Note

Winifred called the executive meeting for two o'clock, and nobody was allowed to be late.

Eight executives sat around the long table on the ninth floor, in suits, with their tablets.

Tate sat at the head, because it was his meeting.

He was reviewing the warehouse numbers with a gold pen in his hand when Winifred walked in.

She leaned on her cane, with Nolan one step behind her and me one step behind him.

He stopped talking.

"Grandmother," he said smoothly.

"We weren't expecting you."

"Stay where you are, Tate," Winifred said.

Winifred took the chair at the end of the table, and the executives straightened.

She looked at me and nodded.

I took my phone out of my pocket and set it on the polished wood.

"Hattie recorded an interview this morning," Winifred said.

"I want you all to hear it, and I want you to hear it once."

I pressed play.

The old doctor's thin voice filled the room, and it named the sum and the man who carried it.

Nobody breathed.

At the sum, the gray-haired chief financial officer put down his tablet.

He stared at his hands.

At Tate's name, the woman across from him whispered, "Oh, my God."

When the recording ended, a silence fell.

Tate set down his gold pen.

He turned it a quarter turn on the table so it lined up with the edge.

"An old man with a gambling problem," he said evenly, "who has been paid by someone to say what he said."

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