The clock on the wall had moved three times past the number eleven when Daniel Mercer finally looked at his watch.
Forty-five minutes.
He had been sitting in a brown leather chair outside the main conference room of Mercer Industrial Supply, listening to people inside discuss the company he had built from a folding table in his garage as though he were a retired consultant who had arrived without an appointment.
Daniel was seventy-one years old.
His navy suit was more than a decade old, but still fit him well. The cuffs of his white shirt were slightly frayed where they disappeared beneath the sleeves, and on his left wrist sat an old silver watch Margaret had given him on their thirtieth wedding anniversary.
The watch had a narrow face, a scratched crystal, and a second hand that made a faint, precise sound when the hallway became quiet enough.
Daniel kept checking it.
Not because he had anywhere else to be.
Because he still could not quite believe nobody had come for him.
Through the glass wall across from his chair, he could see the reception desk where a young woman named Jenna had greeted him that morning.
She looked no older than twenty-four.
“Good morning, sir. Can I help you?”
Daniel had smiled.
“I’m here for the strategic review.”
“Of course. May I have your name?”
“Daniel Mercer.”
She had typed it into her computer.
Her forehead creased.
“Do you have an appointment, Mr. Mercer?”
Daniel had glanced toward the company logo mounted behind her.
MERCER INDUSTRIAL SUPPLY.
His last name stood eight feet high in brushed steel.
“With my own company?”
Jenna had laughed politely.
Not because she recognized him.
Because she assumed he was joking.
“I believe so, sir.”
Daniel had almost explained.
Then stopped.
“Yes. I was invited.”
She eventually found his name on a calendar, apologized, and asked him to wait.
Ten minutes became twenty.
Twenty became thirty.
At thirty-five minutes, a young executive Daniel vaguely recognized came down the hallway carrying a paper cup.
The man stopped.
“Mr. Mercer?”
“Yes.”
He glanced toward the conference room.