Backstabbing Friend's Self-Inflicted Shame novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: A Courtesy to the Board
The directors were eating sandwiches when I came in, which was how I knew Tate had planned it.
The long walnut table was set with paper napkins and a tray of fruit, and the seven chairs were full.
The board chair sat at the far end with his hands folded.
Valeria sat against the wall under my father's photograph, with her coat still on and her eyes on her lap.
She did not look up.
Tate stood at the head of the table, in the place he had stood the Thursday before.
Next to him there was a man in a tweed jacket with a medical bag, and the man looked at the ceiling.
In the corridor behind me, through the open door, two paramedics in navy uniforms were standing with a folded stretcher.
My lawyer came in at my elbow, a gray woman in a gray suit.
She set down her briefcase without a word.
Rafe took his chair against the wall.
"Greer, honey," Tate said. "Thank you for coming. We're all friends here."
"You've brought an ambulance to lunch."
"I've brought a doctor, as a courtesy to the board." His voice was grave and tender. "He's the physician who examined you last Tuesday. He's concerned."
"I'd like to hear that."
The man in tweed cleared his throat.
"Ms. Haldane presented on October twentieth," he said to the table. "She was agitated and sleepless, and she made grandiose statements about her father's company."
"And?"
"In my professional opinion she is a danger to herself."
"Did I?" I said.
He glanced at Tate.
"Presented," he said. "At my clinic on Fulton."
"At what time?"
"Mid-afternoon. Three o'clock."
"For how long?"
"Forty minutes."
I turned to the end of the table.
"Sir," I said to the chair. "Where were you on the afternoon of the twentieth?"
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