Chương 3
At 11:07 p.m., I unlocked the executive entrance of Whitaker Home Solutions and turned on the lights.
Sophie stopped beneath the brushed-steel company logo in the lobby.
Then she looked at the framed photograph beside it.
The photograph showed me twelve years younger, standing beside our first service van.
Underneath it was a small plaque.
DANIEL WHITAKER, FOUNDER.
Sophie glanced at me.
“They actually put your face on the wall?”
“I voted against it.”
“You own the company.”
“It was still one vote.”
She laughed once.
It was the first good sound I had heard all night.
Then I unlocked my office.
On my desk sat the organizational report I had requested two weeks earlier.
Forty-seven Collins relatives were listed across nine departments.
Sophie saw the pages.
“What’s that?”
I pulled out my chair.
“The reason I should have stopped pretending a long time ago.”
My phone showed three missed calls from Claire.
I turned it facedown.
Then I opened my laptop and called the one person who had warned me for years that family favors eventually become company liabilities.
Our chief legal officer answered on the fifth ring.
“Daniel?”
“Sorry, Rebecca.”
“Is something wrong?”
I looked through the glass wall at Sophie, who was standing in the darkened conference room trying to figure out the coffee machine.
“Yes.”
I opened the report.
“And I need you to tell me exactly how much of it I’m legally allowed to fix.”
Rebecca was quiet long enough for me to hear the faint rustle of sheets on her end of the call.
“Fix what?”
“The Collins problem.”
Another pause.
“That is not a small sentence, Daniel.”
“I know.”
“How many?”
“Forty-seven.”
“All at once?”
“If possible.”
“It probably isn’t.”
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the report.
Sophie had finally found the conference room lights and was now standing in front of the coffee machine with her hands on her hips as if negotiating with hostile machinery.
Rebecca sighed.
“Start at the beginning.”
“I don’t have a beginning that matters tonight.”
“Then give me the part that changed.”
I looked at the divorce papers beside the report.
“Claire filed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Her father threw Sophie out of their house.”
Rebecca went silent.
“In the snow?”
“Yes.”
“On Christmas Eve?”
“Yes.”
“And Claire?”
“She let him.”
The rustling stopped.
When Rebecca spoke again, her voice had changed.
“Are you and Sophie safe?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Then the lawyer returned.
“Now listen to me very carefully.”
“I’m listening.”
“You cannot fire forty-seven people because your father-in-law behaved like a bastard at Christmas.”
“I’m aware.”
“I need you more aware than you sound.”
I rubbed my eyes.
“I’m not asking you to help me retaliate.”
“You called at eleven at night with a list of forty-seven relatives.”
“That’s fair.”
“Daniel, if we do anything that looks personal, coordinated, or punitive, every lawyer in three states will have a holiday.”
I turned one page of the report.
There were salary columns, performance reviews, reporting lines, disciplinary notes, and several empty spaces where documentation should have existed.
“What if the reason is real?”
“Which reason?”
“That most of them should never have been hired.”
Rebecca exhaled.
“That is not the same as having a lawful basis to terminate every one of them tomorrow.”
“They’re at-will employees.”
“That phrase is not magic.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I almost snapped at her.
Instead, I looked through the glass wall.
Sophie had given up on coffee and was eating powdered creamer from a packet.
I pointed at her through the glass.
She froze.
Then she slowly lowered the packet.
Rebecca said, “Daniel?”
“I’m here.”
“Why did you keep them?”
“Claire.”
“That is not an answer I can put in a file.”
“No.”
“What else?”
I looked down at the report again.
“Cowardice.”
Rebecca did not respond immediately.
That was one reason I trusted her.
She rarely rushed to rescue me from uncomfortable answers.
Finally, she said, “That one I believe.”
I let the silence sit.
Two years earlier, Rebecca had shown me a compensation analysis indicating that the Collins-linked employees cost the company almost one point four million dollars more annually than comparable staffing would have.
I had called the number misleading.
She had called my objection emotional.
We had not spoken for two days afterward.
Now the report looked less misleading.
“How much documentation do we have?”
“On some of them, plenty.”
“Some?”
“Martin is a problem.”
“Why?”
“Because you protected him.”
I looked toward the dark windows.
“What does that mean?”
“It means when Operations wanted him formally disciplined for overriding safety protocols at the Dayton warehouse, you told them to handle it informally.”
“I remember.”
“When Finance flagged his travel reimbursements, you approved them.”
“Yes.”
“When he changed vendors without going through procurement, you told me it was a relationship issue.”
I closed my eyes.
Rebecca continued.
“Eric has three documented performance warnings, but one was withdrawn after Claire called you.”
“I didn’t tell anyone to withdraw it.”
“You asked whether the manager was being too hard on him.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“It was to the manager.”
I opened my eyes.
She was right.
That was the ugliest part.
I had never issued orders to protect Claire’s family.
I had done something more cowardly.
I had raised eyebrows, asked questions, delayed meetings, suggested patience, and allowed everyone beneath me to understand what I would never say directly.
The company had adapted around my marriage.
“I need this cleaned up.”
“It can be.”
“How?”
“Carefully.”
I heard a door close on her end.
Rebecca was probably leaving her bedroom so she would not wake her husband.
“We audit positions, compensation, attendance, performance documentation, conflicts, reporting structures, and business necessity.”
“How long?”
“Longer than three days.”
I stared at the papers.
“I want action before they come back after Christmas.”
“Then we take action where the evidence supports action.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning some terminations may be immediate.”
“How many?”
“I don’t know yet.”
May you like
“Rebecca.”
“I’m not guessing because you’re angry.”
