Chapter 17: Chair

Tamara's POV

Lloyd Hollister had moved the meeting out of the boardroom and into the ground-floor auditorium.

He had invited three hundred employees to sit in folding chairs and watch.

I understood it the moment I walked in.

He wanted them to see a woman in a navy dress get told to sit down.

My lawyer walked beside me down the center aisle with a leather folio under her arm.

On the stage, a long table held six board members, Porter, and Lloyd at the center with a gavel in front of him.

Porter did not look at me.

His eyes were red at the rims and his jaw was shaved too close, and he was not certain of anything now.

My phone buzzed once in my hand.

Tobias had texted from the lobby: I'm outside the door. Lean on it if you need to.

I put the phone away and kept walking.

"Miss Whitby," Lloyd said into the microphone, with great courtesy. "The seats for guests are in the third row."

"Thank you," I said. "I'll sit at the table."

The auditorium made a low sound.

"This is a meeting of the board of directors."

"It's a meeting of the company," I said. "And I'm its shareholder."

I climbed the three steps to the stage, and my lawyer set a single folder in front of the board's secretary.

"Registered holder certificate for the Whitby Trust, with the notice of termination attached, delivered Monday at ten fifteen. Fifty-one percent."

The secretary, a quiet woman I had once helped with an expense report, read it for a long time.

I watched her swallow.

"It is in order," she said at last.

Lloyd's mouth did not change.

"So noted," he said. "Then Miss Whitby may speak to the first item, which is the continuation of the present leadership."

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