Orpheus - Haunting the Dead.pdf - Dice

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DIA DE LOS MUERTOSAUNTING THE DEAD
“What often happens when a gold-digging man
with a beautiful face and no marketable skills marries a
wealthy woman—he became a ne’er-do-well. I fought
it for a while, tried to help him settle his life, even gave
him a meaningless make-work job in Tierra Arguelles’
public relations department. That’s when he turned on
me.”
“I beg your pardon?” Teo asked.
“He turned on me!” Laura spat. “He took that PR
job and became the public face of the corporation.
While I did the books and ran day-to-day operations
and made sure thousands of people—including him—
got a paycheck, he was gorging himself on fine lunches,
getting his face on the cover of Time magazine and
ingratiating himself with my father. When Papa was
dying, he made that worm CEO of the company—he
gave him my job!”
Zoia put her hand on her mother’s knee. “To be
fair,” she said, “my father was rather good at what he
did. He may not have had a head for business but he
looked good, was a dynamic public speaker and had a
real flair for public relations. Despite their disagreements,
they were a good team for fifteen years.”
“We were never a team,” Laura said. “We were at
war. We warred for the soul of my company. Every time
he tried to interfere in actual operations he nearly cost
us everything. I had to keep him down, keep him in the
box. If he had his way, we never would have taken the
Juarez job.”
“I’m afraid that the Juarez Center was what sent
both my parents over the edge,” Zoia said. “Tierra
Arguelles has been badly overextended for the past few
years. The center would give us some badly needed
capital at the cost of some very negative press. My
mother, as Chief Operating Officer, wanted to take the
job. My father, as CEO, overruled her.”
Eileen leaned forward. “Couldn’t you have done
something? Appealed to the board?”
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