The Vote at the Wrong End of the Table
Chapter 06 - The Vote at the Wrong End of the Table
Arthur had imagined many versions of betrayal.
None hurt like hearing Claire confirm it herself.
She sat beside Grant without touching him.
Arthur noticed a bruise-colored shadow beneath the makeup on her wrist. It might have been nothing. It might have been everything.
“Did you read the petition?” Arthur asked.
Claire stared at the table.
“Yes.”
“Do you believe I am losing my mind?”
Grant answered for her.
“She believes you need help.”
Arthur’s cane struck the floor once.
“I asked my daughter.”
Claire flinched.
Arthur immediately regretted the sharpness in his voice.
She looked up.
“I believe you are making dangerous decisions,” she said. “You disappeared this morning. You surrounded a diner with armed men. You accused my husband of kidnapping Sadie.”
“I said Sadie was missing.”
“She contacted us.”
“Show me.”
Claire looked at Grant.
That tiny movement told Arthur more than her words.
Grant placed a phone on the table and played a recording.
Sadie’s voice filled the room.
“Mom, I’m safe. I just need a few days. Please tell Grandpa not to look for me.”
Arthur listened twice.
The voice was unmistakably Sadie’s, but the sentence sounded stiff, as though she were reading something.
“Send me the file,” Arthur said.
“There’s no reason,” Grant replied.
“There is if it was edited.”
Dr. Lowell opened his medical folder.
“This suspicion is part of the pattern we discussed.”
Arthur turned toward him.
“You came to my motel room today.”
“I was concerned for your safety.”
“How did you know where I was?”
Dr. Lowell hesitated.
Grant interrupted.
“The issue before us is not a family disagreement. It is whether Arthur can continue directing a company with fourteen thousand employees.”
The vote began.
Seven directors supported temporary removal.
Four opposed it.
Margaret Sloan abstained.
Arthur retained ownership of his shares, but Grant received emergency operating authority for thirty days.
It was enough.
Grant could authorize the Marrow Ridge acquisition, close the Bluebird Diner, and move company money before Arthur received a court hearing.
When the meeting ended, Claire followed Arthur into the hallway.
“Dad.”
He stopped but did not turn.
“I didn’t know about the diner,” she said.
“You signed without asking me.”
“Grant showed me reports.”
“Reports written by the doctor he pays.”
“He said you had hidden your diagnosis.”
Arthur faced her.
“Do you believe him because the reports are convincing, or because believing him is easier than trusting me?”
Claire’s eyes filled.
“That isn’t fair.”
“No,” Arthur said quietly. “It isn’t.”
He saw the younger Claire standing on the staircase again, waiting for a father who always had another meeting.
“I gave you many reasons not to trust me,” he said. “But Grant is using those reasons to control you.”
Her expression hardened.
“You always do this. When people disagree with you, you decide they’ve been manipulated.”
“Where is Sadie?”
Claire looked away.
Arthur lowered his voice.
“Look at me and tell me you know where your daughter is.”
She could not.
Grant appeared at the end of the hallway.
“Claire, the car is waiting.”
She stepped away from Arthur.
Before leaving, she pressed something into his hand.
It was a brass key attached to a faded motel tag.
ROOM 117.
Arthur looked up, but Claire was already walking beside her husband.
May you like
On the back of the tag, she had scratched two words.
FIND HER.
