Chapter 17: The Board

Nobody came up the stairs.

Lorna's driver walked to Margo's door, slid an envelope under it and went back to the car.

Margo opened it in her robe with her hair still wet.

It held one card in Lorna's handwriting.

Dunning Freight, ten o'clock. Come and say it to my face.

The sedan pulled out of the lot without its headlights on.

"She wanted us to know she could stand outside," Margo said.

"Then we'll walk inside."

At five to ten we stepped off the elevator on the fourteenth floor.

A glass wall ran along the boardroom.

Behind it sat seven people at a long table, and eleven more on chairs along the wall.

Most of them had been at the Sunday dinner.

Lorna sat at the head in a black suit, with a pot of tea at her elbow.

Dexter stood in the corridor outside the glass in a new tie, with a lawyer in a tan raincoat.

He saw us and his face went red.

"There he is. The man who stole my child's inheritance."

"Dexter," I said. "Is that what you told your lawyer?"

"I told him the truth. I'm the father, and I'm entitled to be heard."

The lawyer cleared his throat and opened a leather case.

"Mr. Lyle is the biological father of Camille Dunning's infant. We have a letter requesting a seat at the table to protect her interests."

The boardroom door opened.

A woman in a gray blazer, the corporate secretary, stepped out with a tablet.

"Mr. Lyle?"

"Yes."

"Section four of the bylaws says only shareholders of record and their spouses may attend. Are you a shareholder?"

"No, but I'm the baby's father."

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