“You did it,” she said.
“We did,” Noah answered.
Hannah watched an ambulance turn toward the emergency entrance.
“You get to own this one yourself,” she replied.
That evening, they celebrated with grocery-store cake and a movie neither had seen.
For several hours, no one mentioned rent, investors, or the Meridian.
It was the first time in months that Hannah felt the ordinary happiness of an evening with nothing urgent to solve.
Chapter 27: The Man With the Silver Phone
Simon spent a difficult morning speaking with the trust’s finance committee.
Postponing the auction had delayed several preservation projects, and the committee wanted to know whether his judgment had become too personal.
Simon listened without interrupting.
He admitted that he had acted partly from anger when Hannah was fired.
He also described the discrepancies uncovered in Charles’s papers.
“Those discrepancies justify an independent review,” the chair said.
“They do,” Simon agreed.
“But the board should not depend on my instincts to find them.”
The committee voted to establish a formal process for bidder complaints and conflicts of interest.
It also required that future auctions be reviewed by directors not directly involved in negotiating the terms.
Simon welcomed the decision.
He had spent years defending the trust from people who wanted to take its property.
He had almost forgotten that an institution could also be weakened by relying too heavily on the certainty of one man.
After the meeting, Miriam found him standing beneath his father’s portrait.
“You handled that well,” she said.
Simon shook his head.
“I handled it late.”
He took the scratched silver phone from his pocket and turned it over in his palm.
The engraved star caught the afternoon light.
“My father would have been furious about the delays,” he said.
“He would also have asked whether we had treated the people involved decently.”
Miriam looked toward the committee room.
“Today we got a little closer,” she replied.
Chapter 28: A Letter From Charles
Three months after the abandoned auction, Hannah received a letter from Charles Voss.
It was printed on heavy cream paper with his company’s name at the top.
He wrote that he regretted the unpleasantness of their encounter and hoped she would understand the stress surrounding a major commercial transaction.
He did not apologize for describing Simon as someone who did not belong.
He did not mention Adrian pulling her apron away.
He offered to contribute to a training program if she would agree that the incident had been resolved satisfactorily.
