Chapter 17: The Deed

On Monday morning Killian sent a car for me, and Roz said I should go.

"He asked for the board room at nine," she said. "He asked for press in the gallery. He wants it public, and he wants you there."

"What does he want?"

"Nothing. That's what worries me."

Hayes Holdings took up eleven floors of a glass tower on the harbor.

The board room was on the top one, with a table long enough for twenty and every chair full.

Killian stood at the head of it in a gray suit with his bandage off.

Constance sat halfway down on his right, in her pearls, with her cane across her lap.

A row of reporters stood against the glass wall.

I sat at the far end beside Roz.

Killian did not look at me while he spoke.

"I am resigning as chairman of Hayes Holdings, effective this morning."

A director in a blue tie pushed back his chair.

"Over a family scandal? The stock is already recovering."

"The company paid for what I did," Killian said. "It will not pay for my name."

"I lied to a court. I lied to the press. I used a child to do it."

"The board can find another chairman."

Constance lifted her cane an inch.

"I will chair until the board does," she said. "I am seventy-four, and I have never missed a meeting."

The director in the blue tie sat back down.

Killian took a folded document out of his jacket.

He walked the whole length of the table and put it in front of me.

"This is the deed to the Beacon Hill house," he said. "The Peabody house."

"It is in your name. There is no condition on it and no paper behind it."

"You don't owe me one thing for it. Roz has read it."

"It's clean," Roz said, and her voice was not quite steady.

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