Chapter 11: Rule Four

I did not enjoy it as much as I had expected.

I had pictured this for two days, Dalton's face and the whole board watching it fall.

When it came, I only felt tired, and very clear.

"I'm suspending you as chief executive," I said, "effective now. Odile will serve as chair until I name someone else."

"You can't," Dalton said.

"The note says I can."

The old man with the cane raised his hand.

"I second it," he said.

Two more hands went up.

Then four, and then all nine, even Adaline's lawyer, who raised his without meeting her eye.

Adaline sat with her pearls in her fist and said nothing at all.

The same two guards who had dragged me out of the lobby came forward at a nod from Odile.

They stood on either side of Dalton and waited.

"You're joking," Dalton said.

"Walk him out, please," I said. "Gently. He's very easily upset."

They took him by the arms, and he went out through the ballroom doors with his face white and wet, and he did not look back.

Camille stayed in her chair.

She slid the glass ring across the table toward me, and her hand was shaking.

"I didn't know," she said. "Hallie, I swear I didn't."

"I believe you."

"Then please believe I never meant..."

"Camille," I said. "Go home."

She went.

I stayed in the ballroom until the room had emptied.

I was still standing there, with the real emerald closed in my fist, when Benton came and found me.

It was dark by the time we reached the cottage.

I had been on my feet for fourteen hours, and I was too wound up to sit down.

Benton walked me to the door.

He was a step behind me, with his hands in his pockets, and I turned on the porch to face him.

"Rule four," he said. "I open the door."

"I know."

"I never said I'd go in after it."

"I know that too."

I opened the door myself, and left it standing wide.

He looked at the dark room, and then at me.

"Hallie."

"Do you want to come in?"

"You know I do."

"Then come in."

He stepped inside, and I closed the door behind him.

For a moment we stood there in the dark, a foot apart, and neither of us touched the lights.

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