Month Two.
Arianne stood in front of the board. Red ink had already bled into the cork where she'd pressed too long in one place. She circled a name. Different from the first.
Another board member. Another absence.
"This one didn't get sick."
She drew a clean line down.
"Family emergency. Out of state."
Julian had stopped standing at some point. He'd lowered himself onto the edge of her desk without remembering it, fingers gripping the wood.
"His daughter," Arianne said. "Seventeen. Supposedly in the hospital." She tapped the board. "He sent flowers to his colleagues while he was out of state. Got photographed at a charity event in Reston three days later."
The room went quiet.
"Same outcome?" Nate's pen scratched fast.
"Yes." She didn't look at him. "The vote changed. Not enough to collapse the decision. Enough to delay it." She added another red date. "Delay changes timing. Timing changes leverage. Leverage changes control."
