The conference room had settled into a different rhythm by morning, the residue of yesterday's theater still faintly detectable in the glances exchanged between chairs, in the way Alice smiled at her notes a beat too long, in the particular warmth of shared humiliation that had transformed four senior executives and their leader into something closer to co-conspirators. The light through the windows was sharper today, less forgiving, as if the sky had decided to stop indulging the mood and return to business.
