Chapter 16: The Tape

The Foundation's boardroom was on the ninth floor of the old bank building, one floor above the Corwin Club.

Seven trustees sat around a long walnut table, and Warren Garrity sat at the head of it.

His lawyer stood behind his chair with a folder.

I came in with Gideon behind me, wearing a clean shirt and no cameras, and Nell behind him, wearing her scrubs.

"Miss Tennant," Warren said, and rose. "Thank you for coming. I hope you've thought about my offer."

"I have."

"A seat at this table, with a vote. It's the right place for you."

"Mr. Garrity, before I answer, I'd like the board to hear something."

I took the envelope out of my bag and set it beside the speaker phone in the center of the table.

"A recording," I said. "It's short."

The lawyer leaned in to Warren's ear.

Warren raised one hand without looking at him.

"Play it," he said. "We have nothing to hide."

Gideon had borrowed a player from the desk of the Foundation's assistant, and he slid the disc in and stepped back to the wall.

I stood with my hand flat on the table.

I had not heard it.

Not once, in two days, and not once in three years.

There was wind, and a phone being fumbled, and then the boy, saying it all at once.

A trustee at the far end put her hand over her mouth.

Then I heard something I hadn't known was on it.

Far from the phone, thin and ragged, a girl was saying the same thing over and over.

"I can't feel it. I can't feel my foot. Where's my foot."

It was me.

I was nineteen, and flat on the asphalt, and I had never in my life heard that sound.

My knees nearly went.

A hand came under my elbow, not holding, only there.

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