Chapter 7: Eight O'Clock
Thomas Reeves arrived at seven fifty-four.
I watched him cross the lobby on the security feed from my office — his usual confident walk, his good suit, his leather portfolio under one arm.
He stopped at the reception desk, said something that made the young woman there smile, and took the elevator up.
He had worked in this building for nine years.
He knew every floor, every assistant, every shortcut.
He moved through it the way a man moves through a place he expects to keep.
Carol was already in my office when I turned from the monitor.
She set a folder on my desk without speaking.
I opened it.
Forty-one pages.
External emails routed through a personal account.
Meeting logs from a private calendar.
A draft term sheet for the acquisition, dated eleven months ago, with Thomas's personal email in the cc line.
And at the back, a single page that Carol had paper-clipped separately — a wire transfer record showing two payments from a holding company registered to George Mitchell, totaling two hundred and forty thousand dollars, deposited into an account in Thomas's wife's name.
"When did you find the wire transfers?" I asked.
"Last night at two in the morning," Carol said.
"I almost called you."
"You should have."
"You needed the sleep more than the information." She paused.
"Dorothy — this is serious.
This isn't a disgruntled employee making noise.
This is coordinated.
The Atlanta group, the Mitchells, Thomas — they've been moving on this for over a year."
"I know."
"We need to involve outside counsel.
And probably the SEC."
"I know that too." I closed the folder.
"But first I want to hear what Thomas says when he sits down in that chair."
Carol looked at me.
"You're going to let him lie to you."
"I'm going to let him choose," I said.
"There's a difference."
Thomas knocked and opened the door at exactly eight o'clock.
He was smiling — the easy, familiar smile of a man who had decided over the weekend that he still had room to maneuver.
"Dorothy.
Carol." He glanced at Carol's presence with the briefest flicker of recalibration, then sat down across from me.
"Good morning.
Ready to dig into the Meridian numbers?"
"In a moment," I said.
"How was your weekend?"
"Quiet.
Restful." He set his portfolio on his knee.
"Yours?"
"Eventful." I folded my hands on the desk.
"Thomas, I'm going to ask you something, and I want you to think carefully before you answer."
His smile stayed in place.
"Of course."
"How long have you been in contact with George Mitchell?"
The smile didn't disappear.
It reconfigured — smaller, more careful, the smile of a man buying time.
"George Mitchell.
The name is familiar.
I think we may have met at a conference—"
"Fourteen months," I said.
"That's how long.
He told me himself, on Saturday evening, in front of my son and his attorney." I opened the folder and slid the wire transfer page across the desk.
"Two hundred and forty thousand dollars.
Deposited in your wife's name through a Mitchell family holding company."
Thomas looked at the page.
His portfolio slid off his knee.
He caught it before it hit the floor, and that small, reflexive motion — the grab, the recovery, the careful setting of it back in place — was the last composed thing he did.
"Dorothy—"
"Don't." My voice was quiet.
"I've known you for nine years.
I came to your daughter's graduation.
I doubled your equity position in 2019 because you asked me to and I trusted your judgment." I paused.
"So don't sit in that chair and perform for me.
Tell me the truth."
Thomas looked at Carol.
Carol looked back at him without expression.
He set the portfolio on the floor beside his chair.
He pressed both hands flat on his knees.
And then, slowly, the careful arrangement of his face came apart.
"I thought you were going to sell," he said.
"Two years ago, after the Meridian close, you started pulling back.
Fewer meetings.
Delegating things you used to handle yourself.
I thought—" He stopped.
"I thought you were preparing to exit and you hadn't told us."
"So you decided to arrange the exit yourself."
"I decided to protect my position."
"By selling my company out from under me."
He didn't answer.
"Who else at Carter Holdings is involved?"
A long pause.
"No one else.
It was only me."
"Thomas."
"It was only me," he repeated.
His voice had gone flat.
"George Mitchell approached me at a conference in Memphis.
He said he represented a group of investors who believed Carter Holdings was undervalued and underled.
He said if I helped facilitate an introduction to the right people, my equity position would be protected in any transition." He looked at the desk.
"I told myself it was just a conversation.
And then it became more than a conversation."
"And the Atlanta group?"
"They're real.
They've been in preliminary discussions with Mitchell's people for eight months.
They have a valuation model and a transition plan." He looked up at me.
"Dorothy, they were going to move with or without me.
I thought if I was inside it, I could—"
"Protect yourself," I said.
He closed his mouth.
I stood up.
"Carol is going to walk you through the next steps.
You will cooperate fully with outside counsel.
You will provide every document, every communication, every contact name.
You will not reach out to George Mitchell, the Atlanta group, or anyone connected to this." I walked to the door and opened it.
"Your access to Carter Holdings systems has already been suspended.
Security will escort you out when you're done with Carol."
Thomas stood up.
He looked older than he had twenty minutes ago.
"Dorothy.
I'm sorry."
I looked at him for a moment.
Nine years.
His daughter's graduation.
The toast at my birthday dinner, warm and genuine, the words of a man who I had believed meant them.
"I know you are," I said.
"That doesn't change what you did."
I left him with Carol and walked down the hall to the window at the end, where you could see the full Nashville skyline on a clear morning.
I stood there for a few minutes.
Not thinking.
Just standing.
My phone buzzed.
A text from Ethan: *How did it go?*
I typed back: *It's done.
May you like
Call me tonight.*
Then I put the phone in my pocket and went back to work.
