Chương 5
“Tell her to let him in.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“What’s in the envelope?”
“I don’t know.”
That answer came too fast.
Robert heard it too.
“Emily.”
She looked at him with a sudden exhaustion that seemed to age her.
“I said I lost my job.”
Her voice dropped.
“I didn’t say they laid me off.”
Daniel Mercer arrived at the loading entrance five minutes later because Emily refused to let him cross the ballroom.
He was somewhere in his forties, lean, gray beginning at his temples, wearing the kind of dark blue suit that looked expensive without trying to announce it.
He carried a white business envelope in one hand.
When he saw Emily, he stopped.
“You brought your family.”
“I didn’t bring them.”
Daniel glanced at me.
“And him?”
“I own the hotel.”
For some reason, that seemed to interest him.
He looked at me again, more carefully this time.
“Jake Carter?”
I nodded.
Emily’s eyes narrowed.
“You know him?”
“By name.”
I had never seen the man before.
Daniel shifted the envelope beneath his arm.
“Our company held the Garrison retreat here last winter.”
I remembered it only vaguely.
Two hundred software people, three days of breakout rooms, enough coffee to keep a small airport operational.
“You were with Halcyon Media?”
“I still am.”
Emily folded her arms.
“Can we not do networking right now?”
Daniel’s attention returned to her.
“I wasn’t sure you’d actually want me to come.”
“I invited you.”
“You invited half the department.”
“That was before.”
“Yes.”
Nobody needed him to explain before what.
Robert stepped forward.
“I’m Emily’s father.”
Daniel shook his hand reluctantly.
“Daniel Mercer.”
“You fired my daughter?”
Emily made a sound through her teeth.
“Dad.”
Daniel did not look intimidated.
“I was her supervisor.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
Daniel glanced at Emily.
“I didn’t fire her.”
Robert looked from one of them to the other.
“Then who did?”
Emily’s face tightened.
Daniel took a breath.
“Emily resigned.”
The alley went quiet except for the low mechanical hum from the hotel’s ventilation system.
Diane stared at her daughter.
“You resigned?”
Emily gave Daniel a look that could have stripped paint.
“Thanks.”
“You told them you were laid off?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You apparently didn’t say much of anything.”
Robert turned toward Emily.
“Why would you resign and then tell us you lost your job?”
“I didn’t tell you I lost it.”
Diane almost laughed.
“You told us you were promoted.”
“That was before I resigned.”
“By three days.”
Emily’s head snapped toward her mother.
“How do you know that?”
Diane held up her phone.
“I looked at the announcement you sent me.”
“You still have that?”
“I save things.”
“You save evidence.”
“Maybe because apparently I need to.”
Robert stepped between them before another argument could start.
“Why did you resign?”
Daniel answered before Emily could.
“Because I asked her to.”
Emily’s expression changed.
There was no anger in it now.
Just warning.
“Daniel.”
He held the envelope out.
“You asked me to come.”
“I asked you to come to a birthday party.”
“After twelve weeks of not answering my calls.”
“I answered two.”
“You replied to two emails with ‘received.’”
“That counts.”
“It really doesn’t.”
I looked toward the service door.
Priya would be checking the clock.
Somewhere inside, a hundred eighteen people were probably eating dinner while the person whose birthday they were celebrating stood beside a recycling enclosure negotiating the ruins of her career.
I should have gone back inside.
Instead, I stayed.
Partly because this was family.
Partly because the hotel was now financially tangled in whatever happened next.
And partly because curiosity is not a noble instinct, no matter how politely you dress it.
Daniel lifted the envelope.
“I brought what you asked for.”
Emily reached for it.
He pulled it back.
“Not yet.”
Her voice went cold.
“You said you would.”
“I said I’d bring the documentation.”
“You’re holding it.”
“Yes.”
“Then give it to me.”
“After you tell me what you plan to do with it.”
Robert frowned.
“What documentation?”
Emily looked toward the hotel wall as if an escape route might appear there.
Diane crossed her arms.
“No more half-truths.”
Emily gave her a tired look.
“This is not about you.”
“I’m your mother.”
“That doesn’t automatically make everything your business.”
“No, but lying to me for three months creates some interest.”
Daniel rubbed the back of his neck.
“I can leave.”
“No.”
Emily said it immediately.
“You’re already here.”
He looked uncomfortable.
It was the first thing about him that made me trust him slightly.
People who enjoyed delivering bad news usually worried me.
Emily looked at me.
“How much time do I have?”
“Probably fifteen minutes before Priya comes looking for me.”
“Great.”
She laughed once.
“Let’s destroy my life efficiently.”
Robert started to say something.
Emily raised a hand.
“No, Dad.”
He stopped.
She turned to Daniel.
“Tell them.”
Daniel studied her face.
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
He waited.
She looked away.
“Do it anyway.”
Daniel loosened his grip on the envelope.
“Emily was leading the Vantage account.”
Robert nodded as though that meant something.
Diane did not bother pretending.
Daniel continued.
“It was one of our largest clients.”
Emily stared at the pavement.
“In April, we discovered reporting discrepancies in the campaign performance summaries.”
Robert’s posture changed.
“What kind of discrepancies?”
“Numbers were being adjusted before they were sent to the client.”
“You mean falsified?”
Emily’s head came up.
“No.”
Daniel did not react.
“Some figures were presented in ways that made underperforming campaigns look stronger than they were.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“It was misleading.”
“We were using an attribution model the client approved.”
“They approved the model, not the manual adjustments.”
Robert looked at Emily.
“You changed numbers?”
“I changed presentation parameters.”
Daniel sighed.
“That’s exactly the language that got us nowhere for six weeks.”
She turned on him.
May you like
“Because you kept acting like I invented the system.”
“I never said you invented it.”
