She straightened a stack of napkins that had come with the water pitcher.

“Derek Vance told me to.

In his office.

With the door closed.”

Derek said her name once, harshly, and got nothing back.

Then he went silent, and the silence was worse than the bark.

I had a moment while the directors took notes, and I spent it looking at the credenza along the wall.

There was a framed photo from 1982, the entire original staff lined up on the front steps in wide lapels, and in the back row, the tallest of them all, a young man with his hands hanging loose at his sides.