Chapter 14: Open Books

I looked at the screen for a long moment.

Then I looked at the board.

"That's me," I said.

Somebody in the back said, "Damn."

"I kissed him. He kissed me back. Then the whole thing went wrong, and everyone here knows how." I turned to Chiara. "Who took the picture?"

She blinked.

"That's not the point."

"Somebody stood on the landing above us and waited," I said. "In a stairwell. During a public hearing. Who sends a person to do that?"

Chiara's lawyer touched her elbow.

She sat down.

The board chair rubbed his eyes under his glasses.

"The board will defer its vote for three weeks," he said, "pending a review of the co-op's financing."

The steward swore.

I picked up my core sample and put it back in my bag, and I didn't let anyone see my hands.

By Wednesday morning the photo was on the front page of the business section.

By Wednesday afternoon, the bosses started calling.

The Philadelphia boss called twice.

The Richmond widow sent a telegram, an actual telegram, that said: Keeper bought question mark explain.

My mother read it out loud at the counter and the tellers lost their minds laughing.

I didn't laugh.

The Keeper's whole value was that nobody could buy her.

If they believed Chiara, the Ledger was worth nothing.

That night, I sat in the vault with the Ledger open and my father's fountain pen in my hand.

My father watched me from the doorway in his wheelchair.

He was flushed and coughing, and my mother kept putting her hand on his forehead.

"What... will you do?" he asked.

"Show them," I said.

On Thursday, I opened the books.

Any boss who wanted to see the Keeper's work could come to High Street and see it.

Every page. Every cent. His own, in front of his own eyes, at the counter, in the open.

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