Chapter 6: What the Board Already Knew
Patricia Ames had been on the Meridian board for eleven years.
She was seventy-three, wore her white hair short, and had a habit of arriving to every meeting fifteen minutes early and saying very little until the moment it mattered most.
She asked to meet at a restaurant three blocks from the Meridian offices.
A corner table, already reserved when I arrived.
She was there when I walked in, coffee in front of her, no menu.
"Sit down, Stephanie."
I sat.
"Christopher called me this morning," she said.
"He told me you had some kind of episode at your anniversary dinner last night.
That your attorney manipulated you into signing documents while you were in emotional distress." She looked at me over the rim of her coffee cup.
"I've known you for nine years.
I've watched you present to this board in conditions that would have broken most people.
So I called Raymond Holt and David Chu after Christopher called me, and I asked them both the same question I'm going to ask you now."
"What question?" I said.
"Is any of it true?"
"No."
She nodded, as though that confirmed something she had already decided.
"Raymond believed him.
David wasn't sure.
I didn't." She set her cup down.
"What I need to know is what's actually happening, because whatever it is, it's going to land on this board's desk inside of a week and I'd rather not be surprised."
I looked at her for a moment.
Patricia had never been unkind to me.
She had also never gone out of her way to protect me.
What she was doing now was something different — she was managing risk, yes, but she was also, I realized, giving me the chance to tell my own story before someone else told it for her.
"The DNA results came back today," I said.
"Christopher is not the biological father of either child."
Patricia's expression did not change.
"Whose are they?"
"Daniel Reeves."
A long pause.
"Our Daniel Reeves."
"Yes."
She looked at the table.
"Does he know?"
"Not yet."
"Does Sabrina know that you know?"
"Not yet."
Patricia was quiet for a moment.
"Christopher holds a twelve percent ownership stake in Meridian.
He acquired it through a shareholder agreement that required board approval." She looked up.
"That agreement included a conduct clause.
It's standard language.
Most people don't read it carefully."
I had read it carefully.
I had drafted the original recommendation that brought it to the board.
I knew exactly what the conduct clause said.
"If Christopher files false statements about a board officer," I said, "or attempts to use his ownership position to influence a legal proceeding against a company employee—"
"The board has grounds to review his stake," Patricia said.
"Yes."
We looked at each other.
"I'm not asking you to act on my behalf," I said.
"I know you're not." She picked up her coffee again.
"I'm telling you what the documents say.
What the board does with that information is the board's decision." A pause.
"But I will tell you this.
Raymond Holt has been uncomfortable with Christopher's position for two years.
He came in on the back of your recommendation, Stephanie.
When people started to understand that, some of them felt they had been misled about the independence of that vote."
That was something I had not known.
"The conduct clause review," I said carefully.
"How long does that process take?"
"If the board moves quickly?
Three weeks." She set her cup down and stood.
"I'm going to call Raymond tonight.
Not about you.
About the conduct clause.
Those are two separate matters."
"Of course," I said.
She picked up her coat.
"You've been carrying this company's finances for nine years, Stephanie.
I want you to know that has not gone unnoticed, even when it may have felt that way."
She left before I could respond.
I sat at the corner table for a few minutes after she was gone.
My phone buzzed.
A message from Jacqueline.
*Christopher's attorney just withdrew the motion to void the divorce agreement.*
I read it twice.
Then, from a number I recognized as Sabrina's: *We need to talk.
Please.
Before this gets worse.*
I put the phone in my bag without answering.
It was already worse.
May you like
She just didn't know how much worse yet.
And somewhere two floors above my office, Daniel Reeves was finishing out his workday, completely unaware that his name was in a DNA report that was about to change the lives of two children who had been introduced to the world under someone else's initials.
