The Tide Between Us

21, 1975. Brick

glass tower that Harlan Crane had built and, as he like

watching t

rner of the conference room with her steno pad on her knee, because Alden Pruitt had asked for her by name."The Crane reading," he had

the back of her wardrobe, behind her father's medical bag and her mother's we

man who had played too much golf to avoid thinking. Two Crane executives. A banker. And, on the far side of the mahogany table, in a chair that was plainly too small for him, a man Solange had never see

omach

ta

widened a fraction. He looked as if he

g his throat. "Thank you for coming. Mr

Gideon said. "I do

turning his head, in a voice like a spoon in a

k," Gideon said. "Smelle

ne's pearls

encil flying through the strokes and curves of Gregg shorthand, and she w

knowledged, I leave fifty one percent of the voting shares o

upon the following condition." Pruitt turn

d wife, and shall remain so for a period of not less than one year. Failing which, the said shares and office shall pass to my son Pre

rry. Ma

es

wh

Marsh. Provide

is a

said gently, "was

ad stoppe

t in her throat, because she had taken this dictation herself on the twelfth of March, in Harlan Crane's st

e voting shares of Crane Holdings and the office of Chief Executive

t cond

he had added, low, almost to himself, Mind you, Miss Pierre-Louis, I have a go

age clause. There

eart thudded against her ribs. Alden Pruitt did not look at her. Preston Crane d

med and the windows overlooked the long flat blue of Biscayne Bay. He had his coatoff an

e said, "like a ma

ever met the man. He never sa

and nobody ever thought I ought to be told." His voice was rough. "A

o has a

who ha

said, "he would not hav

n what she had seen at the pier at dawn: a tired, stubborn, unlovely face, but honest, the face

, Miss Pierre-Louis? Two days

t you wer

said

l, tight smile. "Mr. Marsh, I

A man with an accent. He asked if I was the captain of the tug that brought in the Haitian

drained fr

did yo

her. "Until yesterday, when I looked it up. That's your uncl

r notebook pressed to her chest and sat very still for te

what you typed.She did not yet

kept every steno pad for the past year, a neat row of spir

was

Mendez stationery, folded once. She opened it with hands th

typed. Your uncl

row pointing down the hall, toward the office of the senior partner, where, at that exact moment, through the frost