Chapter 20: Her Father's Letter

I took the stairs down six flights, and Tobias was not in the lobby.

The doorman had seen a tall man in a navy suit walk out onto Dearborn without his phone to his ear.

I called him from the sidewalk in the ninety-degree heat.

It rang four times and went to voicemail.

I called again and got the same flat recorded voice, and I stood with my phone in my hand and the traffic going by.

Then it buzzed.

It wasn't him.

It was a number from the top floor of Hollister Group.

A woman's voice, very careful, said, "Ms. Whitby, the chairman asks if you'd come up."

"He says it's about your father."

I went back in.

The security desk was staffed by the same guard who had walked Porter out.

He stood when he saw me.

"I'll take you up, ma'am. You don't have a badge." He cleared his throat. "You should probably get a badge."

I almost laughed.

The top floor was carpeted in a color that I think was meant to be called oatmeal, and it was quiet.

Lloyd Hollister's office had a wall of windows over the river.

He stood with his back to me, looking down at the water, in the dark three-piece suit.

On his desk, alone on the blotter, lay a plain white envelope gone soft at the corners.

"Sit, Miss Whitby."

"I'll stand."

"Then I will, too."

He turned.

He looked ten years older than he had that morning.

"I owe you an account of myself," he said. "I would rather give it standing up."

I waited.

"Your father and I were partners in the first year, before the board, before any of this."

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