Chapter 21: Clause Eleven

I walked down the three steps with my dead microphone and my head up, and I didn't go back to the table.

I went to the aisle on the left, where Eli had already stood.

"Get it," I said. "Dalton's invoice. Turn it over, to the back."

He had my clutch.

He took out the invoice, unfolded it, and laid it with the terms side up, the gray page I had never read until Bev did.

"The booth," I said.

"I know."

He walked straight up the center aisle with a sheet of paper in his hand.

Two hundred people watched him do it and didn't say a word.

Up on the stage, Dalton cleared his throat into the lectern microphone.

"Thank you," he said. "Mr. Sorensen, honored guests. I'm here tonight because a man taught me something about value."

His voice shook on value.

He glanced at his paper.

"I was hired for a difficult assignment, and I did it with integrity."

He read the next line without looking up.

"A woman's heart is not a small thing, and Mr. Sorensen trusted me with it."

He looked down at the second page and swallowed.

"Dr. Kearney, who was also hired, did not do it with integrity. He took the money and left."

He swallowed again.

"I delivered. I stayed. I believe that matters."

A man in the second row made a sound.

I stood at the edge of the stage steps with my hands at my sides.

"I would like to propose a toast," Dalton said, "to commitment."

Behind him, both screens flickered.

The wall-sized image of the Sorensen Time Partners logo shuddered, vanished, and was replaced by a white page.

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