Chapter 4 — Handcuffs on the Checkerboard

CamilleDad! Do something! Call Hollis! Call the corporate attorneys, all of them!

Gerald AshfordBe quiet, Camille.

CamilleYou promised me I would be running this estate by Christmas!

AdrianShe will never set foot inside it again.

Two uniformed officers came in past Dawson and drew Camille's arms behind her back, and the click of the handcuffs carried the whole length of the checkerboard marble.

CamilleThese are too tight! They're cutting into my wrists!

Officer BoydKeep walking, ma'am. Mind the glass.

CamilleAdrian, look at me. Look at me. You cared about me once.

AdrianI tolerated you because of your father's board seat. The second you put your hands on my wife, that ended.

They walked her the length of the corridor, and she went past the console table and the dome camera without looking up at either.

Nora sat up on the medics' gurney while a paramedic taped a dressing across her forehead and another wrote something on a clipboard.

Gerald AshfordAdrian. A word. Privately.

AdrianNo.

Gerald AshfordThe merger closes Friday morning. There are four hundred people downstairs drinking to it right now.

AdrianThe merger is dead.

Gerald AshfordYou cannot unwind nineteen years in a single night. Be sensible.

AdrianReyes has the photographs from the study. Your daughter opened that safe with a six-digit code that three people in the world know.

Gerald AshfordAnd the third?

AdrianYou.

Gerald Ashford stood in the middle of the corridor in his dinner jacket and said nothing at all for a long moment.

Detective ReyesMr. Ashford. I'm going to need you to stay on the property tonight.

Gerald AshfordI have a flight at six.

Detective ReyesNot any more you don't, sir.