King of War Tech novel · Chapter 23 of 24

Chapter 23: What She Owes

"I'm not finished," Imogen said again, and the room quieted.

She took a folded paper from her jacket and smoothed it flat on the podium.

"I am resigning my seat on the board of Merrick Dynamics, effective this morning."

"I am resigning as chair of the Merrick Foundation."

"My thirty percent of the voting stock goes into a trust for the six families of the Ridgeback unit. I will never vote it."

A murmur rose and fell.

Marjorie had not moved.

"For three years I obeyed my brother's last order," Imogen said.

"I obeyed it. I made a good man kneel on floors in front of this family and in front of the Navy."

"I'm not asking anyone in this room to forgive me."

"I'm telling you what I owe, and that I intend to pay it."

She did not look at me.

Her hands were flat on the paper, and they were not steady.

She walked off the stage alone, and people stepped back from the aisle to let her through.

That night I crossed the garden to the main house.

I had lived across the lawn from it for three years and had never gone through the front door as anything but staff.

The housekeeper opened it before I knocked.

"Mrs. Merrick says the house is yours tonight," she said, and went home.

I climbed the stairs.

Marjorie stood in her robe at the end of the upstairs hall with her hand on Clyde's white door.

"Second on the left," she said. "She's packing."

She went inside and closed the door, and I heard her rocking chair begin to creak.

Imogen's room was a girl's room that had grown up.

A narrow bed, a bookshelf, two open suitcases.

She was folding a gray sweater with her back to the door.

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