Mallory rose slowly, her eyes still stuck to her phone as she hooked her arm through Spencer’s.

Spencer kept staring at the brass nameplate next to the doorframe.

In the middle of the conference room stood a twenty-foot table of polished dark oak.

The room smelled of furniture polish and old paper pulled down from tall filing cabinets.

Thomas sat down at the head of the table.

He took a thick manila envelope, sealed with a round blob of red wax, out of his leather briefcase and set it flat on the wood.

Patricia sat in the chair directly opposite him and put her leather handbag on the floor by her feet.