Beneath This Ink (Beneath #2)(40)

So I would go. And I would fake it.

And hate myself for it.

I flipped my phone over again, bringing it to life and swiping the screen.

Still nothing.

Opening my desk drawer, I tossed it inside. I had things to do and wondering why Constantine Leahy hadn’t contacted me after last night wasn’t helping me accomplish anything.

As soon as I slammed the drawer, my office phone rang. The caller ID showed Archer’s assistant’s extension.

I grabbed it off the cradle. “Hi, Paulette. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Mr. Bennett would like to see you immediately. He’s received some disturbing news.”

My stomach dropped. Shit. He knows. My heart rate jumped into a gallop, and my palms turned clammy.

“Vanessa? Are you there?”

I pulled myself together. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. “Yes. Certainly. I’m on my way.”

“Thank you, dear.”

She hung up, but I continued to hold the phone to my ear, listening to nothing but dead air.

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

I thought about the letter of resignation I’d drafted. The file was saved on my computer. I wondered if I was going to need to print it when I returned to my desk.

My steps were slow and deliberate as I crossed through the cube farm to the opposite corner. Archer’s office was directly diagonal from mine and down a short hallway. Although we both had ‘corner offices,’ neither was anything to write home about. Archer demanded that every penny we could cut from operating expenses went into the foundation’s managed funds. Thus the crappy furniture and tiny offices. Even for the executive director.

Our new offices would be much more modern and trendy, but they were being paid for almost completely with newly raised money and long-term, low interest debt.

Except I probably wouldn’t get to set foot inside those new offices, because I was about to get fired.

Paulette was already on another call, but she waved me down the hallway. I knocked on his closed door.

“Come in.”

I opened the door casually, not letting my apprehension show in my movements.

Archer sat behind the wide executive desk. Dark wood, scarred and marred from years of use, was covered with scattered papers. Stacks of even more papers and files covered almost every inch of the floor. There was a narrow path from the door to the desk. One of his guest chairs was crammed with files, but the other looked as though it’d been newly cleared.

He looked up when I entered. His expression was closed off. And almost…somber.

Oh shit.

Tears burned in the backs of my eyes. Only sheer force of will kept them from materializing and falling. Years of practice smoothed the smile across my face and hid all traces of my inner turmoil.

“Thank you for coming, Vanessa. Please,” he gestured to the chair, “sit.”

I navigated the paper-lined path and lowered myself into the seat. Smoothing my skirt, I crossed my ankles and laid my hands in my lap. Ladylike posture until the very end.

Words that would carry the admission of guilt bubbled up inside me, but I held them back just as effectively as the tears.

I waited for Archer to speak.

He lifted a hand to his face, his fingers starting at his forehead and sliding down around to cover his mouth.

Still waiting…

He dropped his hand to the desk, his fingers clenching into a fist.

“I don’t even know how to say this…” he started.

All the breath in my lungs evaporated.

“But Dick Herzog is dead.”

I froze. The words—words I hadn’t expected to hear—echoed in my head.

“Wha—what?” Dick Herzog was the treasurer of the board.

“Stroke.”

“Oh my God.” I grasped my forearm with one hand, digging my nails into my skin. It was punishment for the instant relief I’d felt to learn that the news Archer had to deliver had nothing to do with Con and me.

If this were the alternative, I think I would’ve preferred to hand in my resignation. Dick Herzog had been on the board for as long as I could remember. He’d given me peppermints as a little girl when I’d come to board meetings with my mother. He’d continued in secret even after she’d made her disapproval about the candy known.

“Yes, well…Melinda’s beside herself. As one would expect.” Melinda was Dick’s wife. His widow.

“I’ll arrange for flowers to be delivered to her at home. And some low maintenance catered meals.”

Archer nodded. “That would be very kind. I’m sure she’d appreciate it. In the meantime, I’m going to send a note to the board sharing the bad news. Melinda wants to have the service on Saturday. She doesn’t want to wait.”

That seemed rather fast, but I guess…maybe that was normal? Or maybe it was the type of decision you made quickly when faced with this situation.

“Okay. I’ll be there.”

I stood, legs just as shaky as they had been when I’d entered the room. Except this time for a completely different reason. Death never got easier. It didn’t matter who it was, or how minor a role the person played in your life. Death always had the power to rock us by reminding us of our innate human fragility.

My thoughts from last night about being ninety and lying in my bed regretting the things I’d never done came rushing back. Dick had to have been seventy-five if he’d been a day.