I made her Director of Corporate Integrity because she had proven, in the hardest possible way, that she was the single most vigilant and most honest person in my entire organization, and I had learned, nearly at the cost of my life, exactly how much those two qualities were worth.

Some people, I know, saw the appointment as sentimental, a rich man’s grateful gesture toward the servant who happened to save him, a nice story to tell at parties.

They misunderstood it completely, and their misunderstanding was itself an example of the exact blindness that had nearly destroyed me.

Because they looked at Elena and still saw the housekeeper, still saw the woman with the flowers, and could not conceive that a person who had cleaned floors could possibly be qualified to oversee the integrity of a major corporation.

They thought I was being kind.