He stopped smiling altogether. “You make an astonishing number of demands for someone who says she wants a cooperative relationship.”

“I've asked for the same three records repeatedly. Do you consider that astonishing?”

Tessa kept her gaze fixed on the screen. I saw her suppress an expression that might have been a grin.

Croft recovered quickly. “Aster cares about every traveler. If staff mishandled a matter, we will address it. But I cannot permit anyone, regardless of shareholding, to interfere with our crews.”

“Nor should you.”

For the first time, he had no answer prepared. A moment later the connection ended with an assurance that his office would be in touch. Price put the tablet away without asking for my signature again.

Before leaving customer relations, I asked Price for the case number attached to my complaint. He searched the tablet and found no open case. The settlement offer had been prepared under a service recovery category that required no factual account of what had occurred. He looked genuinely surprised, which made me suspect the software had trained him not to notice the omission.

“Could you create a complaint now?” I asked.

He began typing. This time he asked for the exact departure, the seat listed on my boarding pass, the location of the burn, and the names of the employees I had spoken with. I answered each question. When he reached a box labeled resolution offered, I asked him to enter that I had refused the settlement without accepting or rejecting ordinary reimbursement.

Price looked toward the security contractors still waiting in the corridor. “I wish I could tell you this is the first time a premium seat has been changed after boarding.”

“You don't need to tell me anything you haven't verified,” I said. “But you should have a place to report what you've seen.”

He gave a quiet, humorless laugh. “At the moment, the form routes right back to premium relations.”

Tessa and I walked through the terminal toward the parking garage. At a coffee stand, we ordered tea. The woman serving us noticed the stain on my coat and offered a packet of wipes. I thanked her and paid before Tessa could reach for her wallet.

“Rusk will know you didn't take the settlement,” she said.

“He knew I wouldn't before I landed.”

“Why are you certain?”

“Because he threatened me. People don't threaten the ones they believe are about to cooperate.”

Tessa considered that. “There's a connection between Veronica Sloane and Croft beyond the charity sponsorship. Sloane's investment firm underwrote part of Aster's refinancing. She also chairs a committee that allocates preferred travel privileges for its donors.”

“Could she get any seat she wanted?”

“Not legitimately after it was sold to someone else.”

“Then somebody made it legitimate on a screen.”

My phone rang. The caller was my brother, Adrian, who had been checking on our mother's house while I traveled. He did not usually phone during the workday. My stomach tightened before I answered.

“Celia? A reporter just called me,” he said. “She asked if Mom taught you that threatening flight attendants is how wealthy people get their way.”

For a moment the noise of the terminal faded. My mother had never had a great deal of money. She had believed that her uniform made her responsible for helping people whose names she might never know. The question was calculated to stain her as surely as Veronica's coffee had stained her notebook.

“Don't answer questions about Mom,” I said. “I'll call the reporter myself.”

Adrian sighed. “I can handle a reporter. What I can't handle is another week when her name gets used like a prop.”

“I know.”

“No. You don't. You get to fly to meetings and fix corporations. I still drive past the hospital every morning.”

He hung up before I could respond. I stood by the coffee counter staring at the dark screen. The company dispute suddenly seemed small beside the distance between my brother and me.

Tessa waited until I put the phone away. “You don't have to do this today.”

“Yes,” I said. “I do. But I need to do it without turning my mother's life into a press release.”

A notification appeared from an unfamiliar address. Attached was a photograph of Aster's reservation terminal. It showed an adjustment to Flight 608, seat 2A, authorized at 06:42, exactly as Owen had said. Beneath the authorization code was a comment field.

The comment read: REASSIGN EVEN IF ORIGINAL PASSENGER OBJECTS. VIP DIRECTION.

Chapter 8 — Thirty-One Percent

The hotel room faced a narrow street where delivery trucks stopped under yellow lights and cyclists threaded between puddles. It was not grand. I chose it because I liked opening a window, hearing people go to work, and remembering that most lives carried on outside the rooms where investors made decisions.

Tessa arrived that evening with two folders. The first contained Aster's current board roster. The second was a legal analysis prepared by our outside counsel, Marta Singh, rebutting Croft's effort to suspend my voting rights.

Marta joined us on video. She was direct, impatient with theatrics, and had represented my company during its sale. “Your shares are validly transferred,” she said. “Croft knows the injunction is unlikely to succeed. But an emergency application could create uncertainty long enough to win a vote.”

“What's the vote?” I asked.

“An extension of executive authority. It would allow Rusk's department to renew certain premium-service contracts without separate board review.”