Chapter 11: The Portrait

Bryce straightened up and smiled at the room.

"You heard her," he said. "She wants me to make the call."

He took his phone out of his back pocket and held it up so everybody could see the screen.

He scrolled to a contact and tapped it, and put it on speaker.

It rang twice.

"Langley Group, corporate travel."

It was the travel director. I had built every one of her executive trips for two years, under Bryce's name.

"Hey! It's Bryce. Bryce Dorrance."

"Bryce," she said. "I was about to call you."

"Listen, heads up. A former employee of mine, very unstable, may try to approach Langley with some creative stories."

There was a short silence on the line.

"Bryce, I don't know anything about that. I was calling because the chairman has asked for a full review of the Dorrance account."

Bryce's smile held.

"A review? Sure. Happy to. We love reviews."

"It came down from his office this morning," the travel director said. "At the request of his granddaughter."

Bryce frowned at the phone.

"His granddaughter? Who's his granddaughter?"

"I'm really not the person to ask," she said. "I'd expect to hear from his office by tomorrow. I have to go."

She hung up.

He put the phone in his pocket.

"It's a routine thing," he said. "Big companies do reviews. Everybody back to work."

Nobody moved.

He turned to me with his jaw tight.

"I'll fix this in person."

"I think you should," I said.

I walked out of the conference room.

At the door, I heard Kylie, low and furious.

"Who is his granddaughter, Bryce?"

The Langley Group building was on Seventeenth Street, forty-one floors of dark glass.

On Friday at eleven, I sat in a leather chair in the lobby with a coffee, waiting to have lunch with my grandfather.