The Aftermath in the Boardroom
The day after the verdict, I returned to the fourteenth floor.
The moving boxes had been cleared away. The mahogany conference table had been polished until it mirrored the afternoon clouds rolling in over the lake. I sat in my father’s old leather chair—the one Preston had banished to a storage closet during his brief tenure as CEO—and stared at the view.
My phone buzzed on the desk. It was a text from Raymond: Court lets out early. Grab a coffee at the dock?
Twenty minutes, I typed back.
Before I left, I unlocked the bottom drawer of the mahogany desk. Inside sat the small black camera I’d retrieved from my bedroom clock three years ago, alongside Preston’s letter from federal prison. I picked up the camera, turning its cold plastic casing over in my hand.
It was amazing how small a weapon could be. A lens the size of a pinhead, a battery pack no larger than a matchbox, yet it had held enough power to detonate an entire life.
My intercom chimed. It was Maya, my executive assistant, a sharp young woman who had survived the purge and helped me rebuild the executive team.
“Harper,” Maya said over the speaker. “Gerald Haines is in the lobby. He wants to know if you’ll sign off on his final asset forfeiture cooperation papers. The prosecutors say his testimony is complete.”
“Tell him to leave the papers with security,” I said coldly. “I won’t be signing anything personally.”
“Understood.”
“And Maya?”
“Yes, Ms. Lawson?”
“Cancel the afternoon review with the PR firm. I want the quarterly impact reports on my desk by nine tomorrow morning, but for today, I’m done.”
“Have a good afternoon, Harper.”
I slipped the small camera back into the drawer, locked it, and picked up my coat.
