Chapter 22: Fall

Imogen did not move.

Her hands stayed folded in her lap, and the secretary waited with her pen above the page.

"Vote, Imogen," Lionel said.

His voice was low and level, and it was the voice of a man giving an instruction he had given a hundred times.

"Four to four," her father said from halfway down the table. "She holds the deciding vote."

"She knows what to do."

Imogen looked at Lionel.

Then she looked at her father, and at the torn check on the walnut, and at my mother.

I saw her work it out.

She had been so sure of the sum for months.

Lionel would win, Nolan would marry her to save himself, and her father would follow the strongest side.

Every number in it had changed since breakfast.

"Imogen," Lionel said, a little harder.

She licked her lips.

"Yes," she said.

The room went still.

"I vote yes. Remove the chairman."

Lionel stared at her.

"After everything I did for you."

"After everything you promised me," Imogen said. "You told me Nolan would be mine by Christmas."

"You little fool."

"You told me my father would follow."

She had gone pale, but she kept her chin up.

I almost admired it.

It was the first honest thing I had ever heard her say.

"Five to four," the secretary said. "The motion carries."

Lionel stood up slowly.

He put both palms on the table and looked down it, from his son to me.

"This company is mine," he said. "I built it."

"My husband built a tower for it," my mother said.

She said it softly, from her wheelchair, and every head turned.

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