And so, alongside the sizable trust funds they’d inherited, the Buttons had also inherited Evie’s wrath.
She did not have thewhy, or thehow, of the murder just yet. But Evie had her list of suspects:
The Maestro, the Brain, the Olympian,
the Artist, and the Failure.
She knew with absolute certainty that one of the Button siblings had killed their father. And she was well on her way to figuring out which one.
ACT III
THE SICILIAN DEFENSE
THE NIGHT BEFORE
11:27P.M.—THE HAMPTONS
Seventeen minutes before his untimely demise, Leontes Button was in his office, speaking to his loyal secretary of sixteen years about the formal termination of his long-standing contract.
“Mr. Button,” Henry began, unsure of how to continue.
Henry wanted—no, desperatelyneeded—this job. He’d sent much of his somewhat sizable salary back home to his mother over the years, saving the rest for his own planned move to China. He’d been planning to retire in three to four years, once the kids were older and more independent. He’d saved enough to ensure that both he and his mother would be taken care of for the rest of their lives. He could not fathom searching for another job now, not at his age and especially not when the job market was as terrible as it was.
“Mr. Button,” Henry started again, taking off his glasses to clean them with his handkerchief. “I… I really need this job. I have people who rely on me, my… my mother, she needs me.”
Mr. Button looked at the secretary, confused. “I know all of this already. I’m not firing you, Henry.”
Now it was Henry’s turn to be confused. “But you said—”
“Yes, I meant that I’m promoting you. I’m terminating your contract as my secretary and promoting you to the head of the Button Estate.”
Henry’s eyebrows shot up, and he looked at the older man in disbelief.
The head of the Button Estate… That would mean Henry would be in charge of everything… the finances… the board…everything.
“That is truly an honor, Mr. Button. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but why?”
It was a fair question. In the history of billionaires and their secretaries, it would be hard to recount an occasion where a secretary had essentially been given power over his employer’s entire fortune. He had to be dreaming.
But when he blinked hard and opened his eyes, he was still standing in Olympus, on the bottom deck of theTitaniayacht, under the watchful gaze of Leontes Button.
“Why what?” Mr. Button asked.
“Why are you promoting me? Not that I am not grateful, but I would have thought that you would be retaining your post as the head of the Button Estate?”
Unless, Henry thought,Mr. Button is retiring.
That must have been it, there was no other explana—
“I’m dying, Henry.”
Henry felt the world tilt on its axis, or perhaps it was the friction of the yacht against the vast and unpredictable sea. “What?” he said, though he had heard perfectly.
“Stage four osteosarcoma—cancer of the bone. They’ve found the wretched thing everywhere, Henry. My charts lit up like an effigy. They said I have another year at best,” Mr. Button said with a sigh, like this was only a mild inconvenience. “I had an appointment earlier with Dr. Benson; he was just calling back to schedule another checkup first thing Monday, to talk me through my options. But I’ve already decided. I have no plan to see the course of this illness through. I saw it destroy my father and it was agonizing to watch. I’m making some arrangements to have this all dealt with sooner rather than later.”
Dealt with?Henry questioned. But he didn’t have time to sit with that thought, because another one eclipsed everything else.
Mr. Button. Cancer.
