Chapter 39 #2
“Good. Before we move to a vote, there is something I need to share with the board."
She reached into the leather folio in front of her and removed an envelope.
It was sealed. Cream colored. The kind of envelope that denoted something formal and considered and deliberate. Tatum had not seen it before, and she watched Remy hold it with the attention of someone who understood that what came out of it was going to matter.
"Archer Gray," Remy said, "was many things that we knew about and some things that we didn't. One of the things we didn't know, until his attorney contacted me ten days ago, is that he named a successor.
" She looked around the table. "In accordance with the Society's charter, a sitting head may designate a successor by sealed document lodged with an independent attorney.
Archer did this fourteen months ago." She paused.
"I am now going to open this envelope and read his choice to the board. "
Fisher's expression had not changed; however, Tatum watched his face carefully and saw, beneath the surface of it, the first faint crack of something that was not quite composed.
Remy broke the seal. She unfolded the document inside and read it in silence for a moment, and something moved across her face that was quickly controlled.
Then she looked up.
"Archer Gray," she said, "has named Armand Fontaine as his chosen successor."
There was a sudden intake of breath all around the table, as if the air was being sucked out of the room.
Tatum looked at Armand. He was sitting with his hands folded on the table, and his expression was that of a man who had already known and had been carrying knowledge that demanded to be taken seriously.
He met her eyes briefly, and she saw in them a grief for Archer that he hadn't shown her before, private and real and entirely his own.
Fisher said, "That document needs to be verified."
"It was sealed, Eli, so the document is valid.
The envelope has followed the chain of custody protocols set in place.
It has all been verified," Remy said pleasantly.
"By two independent attorneys and the Society's own legal counsel.
It is entirely in order." She set it on the table.
"We will now take a vote. Those in favor of accepting Archer Gray's nominated successor, Armand Fontaine, as the new head of the Lock and Key Society. "
Tatum's hand went up.
Jason's hand went up.
Remy's hand went up.
Around the table, one by one, hands lifted in the air, and Tatum watched it happen and felt something in her chest that was not quite relief and not quite grief, but something that sat between the two emotions, the particular feeling of a thing being done correctly in honor of someone who had cared very much about things being done correctly.
Fisher did not raise his hand.
It didn't matter.
Remy counted. "The motion carries," she said. "Armand Fontaine is the new head of the Lock and Key Society."
The occupants of the room absorbed the news. Fisher sat very still at the far end of the table with an expression that had gone from unreadable to something that was working very hard to stay unreadable and not entirely succeeding.
Armand rose from his chair.
He’d always been very large standing up, but there was something different about his posture now, a quality that the room recognized and rearranged itself around in the same unconscious way rooms had always rearranged themselves around certain people.
"I am honored," he said. "And I am aware of what this position requires and what it costs.
I do not take it lightly." He looked around the table.
"There are things that need to be addressed within this organization.
Some of them you know about, and some of them you do not yet.
I will address all of them. With transparency," he said, and the word landed with a very specific weight in Fisher's direction.
"And with the full resources of this Society. "
He sat back down.
Tatum looked at the table.
She thought about Archer naming Armand fourteen months ago, long before any of this had started, long before Davis and Fisher and the cameras and the Ponzi scheme and a parking garage and a woman who hadn't been ready to leave.
She thought about him sitting in this room or in his office or at the window overlooking the East River and writing the name of the person he trusted most on a piece of paper and sealing it and sending it to a lawyer.
Planning, she thought. He had always said that planning was the key to everything.
She pressed her lips together.
Remy adjourned the meeting.
Around the table, people began to gather their things, conversations starting up in low voices, the particular noise of a room that has processed something significant and is beginning to work out what it means.
Tatum sat still for a moment longer.
Armand appeared beside her. He didn't say anything. He simply stood there, which was enough.
She looked up at him. "Ready?" she said.
"Whenever you are, mon amie," he said. Whenever you are, my friend.
She picked up her bag.
She stood.
She took one last look at the boardroom, at the long table and the heavy chairs and the light coming through the windows in the same way it always had.
She thought about all the times she had sat in this room and looked toward the head of it, and she let herself feel that for exactly as long as she could stand it.
Then she walked out.
Armand fell into step beside her, and they moved together down the corridor and toward the door and toward whatever came next.
Tatum kept her eyes forward and her chin up and thought about Ireland, about the light there, about the particular green of fields in the late afternoon that she had read about and dreamed about and told herself she would get to one day.
One day was today.
She pushed through the door into the morning air.
She didn't look back.