"Deliveries go around back." The man behind the reception desk never bothered to look at the appointment card in Loretta Simmons's hand.
He looked at her sensible black shoes, the navy cardigan buttoned over a plain gray dress, and the canvas bag hanging from her shoulder, then nodded toward a service corridor beside the elevators.
Beyond the glass walls of the lobby, morning traffic moved along Belmont Road in Atlanta, and the sunlight polished the marble floor into something that looked almost too expensive to walk on. Loretta had spent eleven years cleaning floors like these, so she knew exactly what they cost to maintain and exactly how quickly a polished floor could reveal a person's reflection.
"I'm not delivering anything," she said. "I have a nine o'clock appointment with Mr. Kincaid."
The receptionist finally looked down. His name tag said MARTIN, and the leather-bound visitor register in front of him appeared much more interesting than she did. He found the appointment on his monitor, frowned, and tilted the screen away from her as if the information were confidential. "L. Simmons," he read.
"Booked by Ms. Holt's office. All right. You can wait over there."
He pointed to a low chair beneath an enormous abstract painting, a chair positioned so far from the actual reception counter that a visitor seated there might as well have been forgotten. Loretta thanked him and walked to it without protest. The chair's dark leather had begun to crack along one arm, a detail she noticed because someone who had approved that furniture purchase had once believed that expensive things needed no maintenance. She placed her canvas bag beside her feet, opened a small spiral notebook, and wrote down the time: 9:00 a.m.
Upstairs, in the corner office with the best view of the city, Bradley Kincaid was examining his reflection in the black surface of a conference-room window. He was forty-eight, broad-shouldered, neatly barbered, and careful about the details that appeared in photographs. His tailored jacket rested across the back of a chair while his assistant adjusted the schedule for the coming week. On Monday morning, if everything went according to plan, he expected to be introduced to the entire company as the new chief executive officer of Belmont Row.
The company managed commercial properties, hospitality contracts, and high-end corporate facilities across the region. Its flagship address on Belmont Road had become synonymous with polished receptions, rooftop celebrations, and a clientele whose arrival was announced before they reached the curb. The business had changed hands the previous Friday, acquired by Harbor Gate Capital, a private investment group whose managing partner, Patricia Holt, had told Bradley that the new owners wanted continuity. Bradley had interpreted continuity to mean that nothing important would change, except that his title would grow larger.
"Mr. Kincaid," his assistant said, "your nine o'clock is here. L. Simmons, from Patricia Holt's office."