Part 25:
I want you to do one more thing for me. Okay? I want you to be in that room as a member of my team, not as a contractor, not as a compliance associate. I want you to be there as a representative of the office of the CEO. I am creating a role. It is an internal position, deputy to the CEO for field operations. The salary is $140,000. You will report only to me.
You will work out of this building. It is a permanent position. He stared at her. Celeste, before you say anything. Celeste? Before you say anything, Ryan. I am not offering this because of what you did today. I am offering it because I have watched you for almost a month, and I do not have a man or a woman on my executive team who sees operations the way you do.
Delia is brilliant. Marcus is brilliant. They are both trained to see systems. You see people. I am short on people who see people. I need one. I want you. I have a seventh grade education in logistics. You have 2 years and 7 months of working the floor at the company I am trying to fix.
You have a lifetime of working jobs where if you made a mistake, you lost the job. That is an education. Nobody on my executive team has that education. I want you. Celeste? Yes. Can I think about it? Yes. For how long? Until Tuesday. Okay. Okay. She sat back down. She pulled a file toward her. She opened it and started reading.
She was back in the mode of the CEO. But for just a second, before she looked down at the file, she looked up at him, and her face did something small and private, and Ryan saw it. He saw that she had been afraid. He saw that she had been afraid for him all afternoon, and that she had not let anybody in the room see it until he walked back through the door, and that even then she had kept it off her face while she listened to him talk, and that the cost of keeping it off her face was what had shown up just now in that small private look. He did not say anything
about it. He stood up. He picked up his coffee. He walked to the door. Ryan. Yeah. Go home. Hug your daughter. I was going to. I know. Tuesday morning. Ryan stood in the hallway on the ninth floor of the Regis Hollister corporate office, two floors above Sharp’s office, in a suit that Celeste’s assistant had sent over to his apartment on Sunday night with a note that said, “Don’t ask, just wear it.” The suit fit.
It fit a little too well for something that had been guessed at. He suspected, without being able to prove it, that someone had taken his measurements off his coat during the long afternoon at Montpelier. Celeste was beside him. She wore a charcoal suit and low heels. Her hair was pinned up. Marcus was behind them with two men Ryan did not know.
Delia was two steps behind Marcus with a leather folio under her arm, and a face that was carefully blank. At the end of the hallway was a glass door that said, “D. Rhineck, Chief Operating Officer.” Behind the glass door was an empty reception area. Rhineck’s assistant had been relieved of duty for the morning on a pretext.
Beyond the assistant’s desk was the door to Rhineck’s office. It was closed. Celeste walked up to it. She did not knock. She opened the door. Douglas Rhineck was at his desk, on the phone. He was 58 years old with silver hair cut short, a square face, and a build that had been athletic once, and was still dignified. He had on a white shirt and a tie, and the tie had a small embroidered sailboat on it.
He looked up as the door opened. His face did the smallest thing. He said into the phone, “I’ll call you back.” and hung up. Celeste? Douglas? I didn’t I wasn’t expecting you today. I know you weren’t. Celeste walked into the room. Ryan walked in behind her. Marcus stopped at the door, and the two men with him stopped behind him.
Delia came in last and closed the door. Rhinock looked at Ryan. Who is this? This is Ryan Hale. He is my deputy for field operations. You haven’t met. Deputy for field operations? That is a new role. Since when? Since about 4 minutes ago, formally. In practice, since 3 weeks ago. Rhinock looked at Ryan.
Ryan looked back at him. “Mr. Rhinock.” Ryan said. “Mr. Hale.” I used to work for you, indirectly. Did you? At the distribution center in Rutland. On the warehouse floor. Rhinock’s face was very still. I don’t recall meeting you. You didn’t meet me, but I worked for you. Until about a month ago, when Carl Voss framed me for moving 11 crates of insulin pumps off a loading dock on a Tuesday night.
Rhinock did not say anything. “I didn’t move the crates, Mr. Rhinock. Carl did. You know that. You also know who ordered them moved, and why, and where the money went.” Rhinock looked at Celeste. “Celeste, whatever this is Douglas whatever this is, I think it would be better for us to sit down privately.” “It is not going to be private, Douglas.
Celeste, you were given a company I trusted you with. You were given a rank I trusted you with. You were given access to my name and my reputation, and you turned all of it into a machine for stealing from the people in the hospitals we supply. You built the internal reporting structure in such a way that any honest person who noticed what you were doing would be ground up by the process before they could get to anyone who would listen.
You framed Ryan Hale for a theft you engineered, and you did it because he was the first person in 18 months who might have started asking questions you did not want answered. Celeste, I think Be quiet, Douglas. He was quiet. There’s a federal team in the lobby of this building. They arrived 6 minutes ago.
