“Are you Rowan?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me something only his son would know.”
Rowan thought.
“My father hated bananas.”
Silence.
Then Joseph laughed.
“He absolutely despised them.”
“No one knows why.”
“I do.”
Rowan sat straighter.
“Why?”
“He got trapped in a freight elevator with five crates of overripe bananas during his first summer job.”
Rowan stared at the phone.
Walter had never told him that.
Something about the ridiculousness of the detail nearly broke him.
Joseph possessed copies.
Not everything.
Enough.
Original bank correspondence.
Audit inquiries.
Internal authorization chains.
A set of transaction confirmations bearing Gideon Vale’s approvals.
The records did not prove every allegation.
They proved enough to make the notebook impossible to dismiss as fiction.
Joseph agreed to provide them through counsel.
“Why didn’t you come forward?”
Rowan asked.
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“Your father disappeared.”
“Arthur Ashford became incapacitated.”
“My firm told me there was no client authorization to proceed.”
“Gideon’s lawyers threatened litigation.”
“I had a wife dying of cancer.”
Joseph paused.
“I told myself preserving the documents was enough.”
“Was it?”
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
“I have regretted that for twelve years.”
Rowan understood something then.
Gideon had not built his position because everyone around him was evil.
He built it because enough people were frightened, compromised, tired, dependent, or convinced that someone else would eventually stop him.
The board meeting arrived under heavy rain.
Rowan wore a borrowed charcoal suit from Mr. Bellamy’s son.
The sleeves were slightly short.
Vivian offered to buy him one.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because this one bothers you.”
“It does.”
“Then it stays.”
For the first time in weeks, she laughed freely.
The meeting took place on the forty-second floor of Ashford Tower.
Rowan had helped install interior partitions in that building eight years earlier.
He remembered carrying sheetrock through a service entrance while executives used private elevators fifty feet away.
Now security checked his name against the shareholder list.
The receptionist looked at him twice.
“Mr. Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“Welcome.”
Rowan nearly laughed.
Vivian arrived beside him carrying a leather folder.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He looked at her.
“Why good?”
“Because the people who feel completely comfortable in rooms like this are usually the problem.”
The shareholder hall filled slowly.
Board members.
Institutional representatives.
Company counsel.
Senior executives.
Press excluded from the formal session.
Gideon entered last.
He wore navy.
Of course.
His eyes found Rowan immediately.
Then the borrowed suit.
A short laugh escaped him.
Several people nearby noticed.
Gideon walked toward them.
“Vivian.”
“Gideon.”
“Mr. Mercer.”
Rowan nodded.
Gideon looked at the folder.
“This is unnecessary.”
Vivian answered.