The frantic yelling had stopped. The high-priced consultants had packed their leather briefcases and slipped out the back service exits, avoiding the lobby where Arthur Tennant’s bronze boots still caught the afternoon light. Martin Vale was gone, escorted out not by corporate security, but by two quiet men in dark suits representing the corporate trust, carrying his personal belongings in a plastic dry-cleaning bag because no one could spare a cardboard box for him.
I rode the private elevator back up to the eighth floor alone.
The doors slid open with a soft, expensive sigh. The entire floor had emptied out. People were huddled in small clusters by the water coolers, whispering, their eyes darting toward my old desk by the corner window.
Nina was sitting at her station, her fingers hovering over her keyboard. When she saw me step out of the elevator, she stood up so fast her chair tipped over backward with a sharp clatter.
