Chapter 26
— A Chairman's Quiet Fear
The meeting had been called to discuss the hearing, and Landon had presented his cover story again, the confusion, the accident, the genuine invoices, the broad power of attorney. Rhys had nodded, as he always did, and had said that the board must support the company's management, and that the hearing would clear the matter up. But then Zane had asked questions, quiet questions, the kind that do not sound like accusations until you hear the answers. Had the board seen the original power of attorney. Had anyone checked the logbook against the invoices. Had anyone asked Wesley about the bank records. Had anyone spoken to Kieran, or to Fenella, or to Yvonne. Rhys had no answers, and the silence in the room had grown heavy, and Zane had seen Rhys look down at his hands, and then at the window, as if he wished he were somewhere else.
After the meeting, Zane told me, Rhys had stayed behind, alone in the boardroom, sitting at the long table with the papers still spread before him. He had read the copies Zane had left, the logbook extracts, the bank records, the statement from Kieran, the copy of the power of attorney with its plain limits. He had read them slowly, Zane said, because the secretary had seen him through the glass, and had told Zane later, in confidence, that the chairman had sat there for an hour, reading and rereading, and that his face had gone pale. He had not telephoned Landon. He had not telephoned Xavier. He had simply sat, and read, and understood, perhaps for the first time, what Landon had done, and what his own support for Landon had meant.
I thought about Rhys that evening, and I tried to feel anger toward him, but what I felt was pity, mixed with a hard, clear understanding. Rhys had not pushed me into the river. He had not forged invoices, or taken money from Alpen Trade, or sold the boats. What he had done was worse in a quieter way: he had believed the easy story, and he had lent it his authority, and he had silenced the doubts of others, including Zane, because it was easier to support the son in the office than to defend the mother who was said to be dead. He had chaired the board that announced my death, and he had allowed Landon to speak for the company, and he had done nothing to check whether the story was true. That was his failure, and now, with the hearing approaching, he was beginning to see it for what it was.
Zane said that Rhys had asked him, in private, after the meeting, whether the fraud would be exposed at the hearing, and whether there was any way to settle the matter quietly, before it became public. Zane had told him the truth: the evidence was too strong, and too many witnesses had already spoken to Octavia, and the hearing would go ahead, and the findings would be public. Rhys had asked, then, what would happen to him, and Zane had said, honestly, that he did not know, that it would depend on what the panel found, and on whether Rhys had known about the fraud, or had simply failed to ask. Rhys had nodded, and had said nothing more, and had walked out of the building alone, without his usual driver, as if he needed time to think.
I learned, a few days later, that Rhys was considering resigning. He had spoken to a friend, outside the company, about stepping down before the hearing, to spare himself, and the board, the shame of a public finding. I did not know whether he would do it, and I did not know whether I wanted him to. A resignation before the hearing would be an admission, of a kind, that he knew the case against Landon was strong. It would also leave the board without a chairman at a difficult moment, and the company needed steady hands. But I understood his fear. He had built his reputation on being a safe, respectable chairman, a man who could be trusted with a great company, and now he saw that reputation slipping away, because he had trusted the wrong man, and had not checked. He was afraid, and he had reason to be afraid, because the hearing would ask him, too, what he had known, and when he had known it, and why he had done nothing.
I did not seek him out, and I did not send him a message. That was not my place, and it was not my fight. My fight was with Landon, and with Xavier, and with the fraud they had built. Rhys would have to make his own choice, and live with it, as we all must. But I thought about him, in the quiet of the evening, and I hoped, for his sake, and for the company's sake, that he would tell the truth when he was asked, and that he would not try to protect Landon any longer. Fear can make a man honest, if he lets it. It can also make him hide. Which way Rhys would go, I did not yet know. The hearing would tell us, and until then, his quiet fear would sit with him, alone, in the boardroom, with the papers spread before him, and the truth growing harder to ignore with every page.