Her hand was not empty. His eyes barely flickered as he palmed the
note.
“Same, Mr Stern,” she said. “This is my friend, Keats.” She stumbled over the word friend. They weren’t exactly friends, were they?
They barely knew each other.
“My friend,” she repeated, as if needing to emphasize it. Stern was head of McLure security. He’d sat by her bed when she
was recovering from injuries following the assassination of her father
and brother, and as far as Plath felt she could trust anyone, she trusted
him. He gave Keats the same dubious, sizing-up look her father would
have.
The lawyer, Don Jellicoe, was an older man, tall, spare, with
a hovering grin and an open collar. He rose to shake her hand as
well.
The office was a corner, with windows that looked out on the Empire State Building and, beyond it, at the Tulip—Armstrong cor
porate headquarters.
She had been there, seen it from the inside. She had watched her
wiring take effect on Benjamin Armstrong. She almost flinched,
thinking they could see her now.
She stared, probably too long, then looked with exaggerated and
unconvincing calm around the room and turned her back on the
Tulip and the memories.
A younger lawyer sat discreetly in a corner. The remaining person in the room was Hannah Thrum. Thrum was middle-aged but
looked younger, expensively but conservatively dressed. She had a full
face and somewhat droopy eyes that seemed at odds with the wellcoiffed businesswoman look.
Thrum was the interim chairman of the board of McLure Holdings, the parent corporation of McLure Labs.
“Can I get anyone some coffee? Water? Tea? We have it all,” Jellicoe offered, very genial. Keats asked for coffee, Thrum ordered
a sparkling water, and the younger lawyer raced off to get both.
“So,” Jellicoe said. “We have copies for you, Sadie, and for you, Hannah.” He handed iPads to each and tapped his own to bring up the document. “We have the small matter of two billion dollars.” He grinned. “Give or take a dime.”
That drew only tense stares. Jellicoe sighed, a little deflated. “As you can see, it’s quite a long document. But I wondered if we could dispense with a literal reading of every single word and you would allow me to summarize?”
Keats surprised everyone by speaking up. “Of course Pl— Sadie would get a full copy?”
“Yes, of course,” Jellicoe said, and seemed amused.