Chapter 14: The Proxy

"I didn't sign anything," I said into the clinic phone. "I never opened an account."

"I was afraid of that," the board chair said. "Can you come to the boardroom at four?"

"I'll be there."

"Bring a lawyer, if you have one."

I didn't. I had a blue pen from the dental clinic and a clipping that said Wait.

I didn't call Anthony either. I had told him I was done taking things, and I wasn't going to start with a rescue.

At four o'clock I walked into the boardroom on the forty-first floor of the Brannigan tower, still in my scrubs.

The long table had been cleared. The board chair sat at one end with two folders in front of him.

Rowan sat halfway down, calm, in a gray suit. Pierce lounged beside him with a coffee, and company counsel sat on his other side.

Pierce looked me up and down.

"Nice outfit, Lizzie," he said. "Dressing for the part?"

"Mr. Brannigan," the chair said. "Not again."

He pushed a page toward me.

It was titled Assignment of Proxy and Voting Interest. It gave Rowan every share, vote and interest I held or would ever hold in the company.

At the bottom was a signature.

Elizabeth Brannigan, in swooping cursive, with a stamp beside it from a notary.

"That isn't mine," I said.

"It was notarized Monday at three," company counsel said. "Your brother Pierce was present."

"I was," Pierce said. "She signed it in the study after the reading, with the release. She looked at the check and cried. It was sad, honestly."

I looked at the page again.

I do not write my name in cursive. I print it, in block capitals, because a charting error once cost a patient a wrong tooth.

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