Chapter 28 - THE BOARD VOTE
Emily reached Hale Systems eight minutes after the meeting began.
The lobby guards did not stop her this time.
Tom Reeves, wearing a bandage around his head, had returned against doctor’s orders.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Emily said.
He shrugged.
“Neither should half the board.”
“Good point.”
He handed her his badge.
Emily looked at it.
“You’re going to get fired.”
“By who?”
For the first time in two days, she smiled without forcing it.
Upstairs, Diane sat at the head of the table again.
She looked terrible.
The kidnapping had left bruises on both wrists and a cut near her temple.
She was still wearing a hospital bracelet.
Emily entered without knocking.
Diane looked at her.
“I told them to wait.”
Emily stopped.
“What?”
Diane turned toward the board.
“I called the meeting because the proxy clause requires me to respond to any qualified offer.”
The general counsel nodded reluctantly.
“She is correct.”
Diane continued.
“But I have not recommended approval.”
Emily looked at the sale packet.
Ames Global had offered enough to pay every debt and leave shareholders rich.
It was designed to be irresistible.
Emily said, “It’s Ambrose.”
Three directors exchanged looks.
One said, “Mr. Ambrose is dead.”
“No, he isn’t.”
Emily placed the Grant Ames passport photograph on the table.
The room erupted.
Diane stared at it.
“He planned to disappear.”
“Yes.”
The director at Emily’s left read the documents.
“We cannot base a decision on an unverified photograph.”
Emily looked at him.
“What do you want, Graham to send a selfie?”
Rachel coughed.
Emily closed her eyes briefly.
“Sorry.”
The director frowned.
“No, you’re not.”
“No.”
That earned the smallest hint of a smile from Helen’s old chair at the wall.
Helen was not sitting in it.
She was outside with investigators.
Her absence felt heavy.
The board had until 5:00 p.m. to accept or reject the offer before Ames Global withdrew.
At 4:12, two directors favored the sale.
At 4:30, four.
At 4:41, five.
A tie would let Diane decide as proxy.
Emily sat across from her stepmother.
“What are you going to do?”
Diane looked at the packet.
“I don’t know.”
Emily laughed in disbelief.
“You don’t know?”
“If I reject this and the company runs out of money, seven thousand people suffer.”
“Matthew offered a bridge loan.”
“And then what?”
“We fix the company.”
“How?”
Emily opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Diane looked almost kind.
“That is not an insult.”
Emily hated that too.
“You have never run this company.”
“I can learn.”
“Yes.”
“But not by Friday.”
Emily looked around the table.
The directors were not villains.
Some were cowards.
Some were self-interested.
Some were genuinely terrified of missing payroll.
She had wanted the problem to be simpler.
It was not.
At 4:48, Emily stood.
“I have a proposal.”
The room quieted.
“I will not ask you to vote against the Ames offer because I’m Arthur Hale’s daughter.”
She looked at Diane.
“Or because my stepmother hurt me.”
Diane looked down.
“Or because Graham Ambrose is a criminal.”
A director interrupted.
“Alleged.”
Emily nodded.
“Fine. Alleged criminal with a fake passport and an extremely dramatic death.”
Rachel rubbed her forehead.
Emily continued.
“I’m asking for thirty days.”
“To do what?”
“To stabilize payroll, open the books to an independent forensic audit, and put the company up for a competitive review.”
A director frowned.
“You would sell?”
“If selling is best for the company after we know what it actually owns and owes, yes.”
Diane stared at her.
Emily’s chest hurt.
She had spent two days fighting to prove the company was hers.
Now she was telling them she might sell it.
Ownership did not mean keeping.
That was another lesson she disliked.
“What secures payroll?” the CFO pro tem asked.
“Carter Meridian bridge loan.”
Murmurs filled the room.
Emily held up one hand.
“No equity. No voting rights. Market interest. Receivables as collateral. Independent counsel reviewed it.”
A director asked, “And what does Matthew Carter get?”
Emily looked toward the screen.
Matthew was joining remotely from the hospital.
He answered himself.
“One observer seat for ninety days.”
The director laughed.
“That’s all?”
Matthew said, “I’m trying to become less objectionable.”
Emily looked at him.
“Slow progress.”
Several people laughed.
The tension broke just enough.
At 4:56, the board voted.
Five for Ames Global.
Five for Emily’s thirty-day plan.
One director remained.
Helen’s former closest ally, Thomas Bell.
He looked at Diane.
Then Emily.
“I knew Arthur for thirty years.”
Emily’s stomach tightened.
Bell continued.
“He would hate this plan.”
Emily nodded.
“I know.”
Bell smiled faintly.
“That’s why I’m voting for it.”
Six to five.
The Ames offer was rejected.
The thirty-day plan passed.
Emily exhaled.
Then the boardroom phone rang.
Helen Walsh was calling from state police custody.
Emily answered.
Helen said only one sentence.
“Ambrose is not going to Lisbon.”
Emily frowned.
“How do you know?”
“Because he just called me.”
May you like
The line crackled.
“He’s coming here.”
