Chapter 5: Nine A.M.

The boardroom at Kenworthy Outfitters was on the thirty-eighth floor, with a glass wall that looked down on the whole of uptown Charlotte.

A long walnut table ran down the middle, and eleven directors sat around it in dark suits.

Cordelia Kenworthy sat at the far end with her back to the view.

Annalise sat on her right in white, her chin lifted.

Piers Stanwyck stood against the wall behind Cordelia, in his navy turtleneck, with his hands folded.

He did not look at me when I came in.

I had brought a witness, as instructed.

She was my firm's notary, a sixty-year-old woman in a yellow raincoat who had sworn in half the witnesses in Mecklenburg County.

"Don't worry, honey," she whispered, sitting beside me.

"I've seen rooms like this fold for less."

Roland Kenworthy rose at the head of the table with a thin blue folder in his hand.

His bow tie was dark red.

"Colleagues," he said warmly.

"We are here because a young woman made a claim at our Founders' Gala."

"If it is true, it requires us to reconsider a resolution we adopted last Thursday."

"It's not true," Annalise said.

"Then we will have nothing to worry about," said Roland.

He opened the folder.

"Two samples were taken under supervision on Saturday morning, and the lab returned them to my counsel at seven o'clock this morning."

He held out the page to his lawyer, who stood to read it in a clear dry voice.

"The probability of maternity between Cordelia Anne Kenworthy and Wilhelmina Odom is ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent."

The room did not move.

"The probability of maternity between Cordelia Anne Kenworthy and Annalise Kenworthy is zero."

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