Chapter 16: Davis's Lock

My father took a single sheet of paper from the drawer and laid it on the desk between Chet and me.

"The day I signed those shares over to you, you were twenty-two," he said. "I added one line to the company's book."

"What line?"

"That they can't be sold, pledged or signed away unless my hand is on the same page."

He tapped the paper.

"Your mother never reads what I do. She read the top and thought it was a gift."

I stared at him.

"So the papers Russell brought me..."

"Would have been worth nothing. A signature from you alone would never have held."

Chet let out a short, disbelieving laugh.

"He's been planning around a lock that was already shut," he said.

"Since the day I signed the shares over to you. Yes."

"Dad." My voice came out smaller than I wanted. "You knew they were using me. You let me go on."

"I did not know you had chosen to go on," he said quietly.

"When did you know?"

"The morning I met Chet on the stairs with his shirt undone."

"Dad."

"You looked at that boy with a plan in your face. I've hardly slept since."

"Why not stop it?"

"Because it wouldn't have stopped him."

He sat down.

"He'd have shrugged and gone around you to your mother. The shares aren't what he wants. They never were. She is."

I felt it land.

"Her signature," I said. "Not mine."

"A lock on your shares doesn't reach hers. She's the chief executive."

He looked at his wedding ring.

"Everything she owns, she can give him with one pen, and I can't stop that."

"You could take the pen out of her hand," I said.

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