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embezzlement.”
    Charlotte felt and heard her phone ringing in her bag. She pulled it out. It was home. Then another call came in, from Emily. She answered the first one.
    Greta’s voice sounded shaken. “Charlotte, where are you?”
    “I’m on my way to Janet’s. Greta, there’s a reporter here who says Daddy has been arrested. What’s going on?”
    “Come home, Charlotte. Or go to Janet’s if you’re closer. Davis will come and pick you up.”
    Charlotte looked up at the skyline. She could see the Dakota.
    “I’m closer to Janet’s. Tell Davis I’ll be there in ten minutes. Is it true?”
    Greta sounded like she was in tears. “Yes, Charlotte, but wedon’t know anything yet.” There was a pause. “Please hurry, Charlotte.”
    She hung up. Emily had long ago gone to voice mail, and as she looked, she saw text after text coming in, voice mails piling up, phone calls on top of phone calls. She looked up. The reporter was still there, a tape recorder in his hand now, stretched out to catch her comments, her first thoughts on whatever it was that was happening. She drew a breath.
    “Miss Williams? Do you have a comment? Your father is accused of perpetrating a massive fraud, embezzling millions, possibly billions, of dollars. The SEC claims to have been following him for years. What do you have to say?”
    Charlotte narrowed her eyes at him and stood tall. “I have absolutely no doubt that my father is completely innocent and that his name will soon be cleared.”
    “It’s your name, too, Charlotte.” The reporter was very still, hoping she would say something that would make his editor proud.
    But instead, she said something that would have made Miss Millie proud. “A name is just a label, Mr. Robinson. It doesn’t tell you anything about someone’s character.”
    And then she turned on her heel and walked away.

Chapter

SEVEN

    Janet opened the door, smiling, her arms open wide. She had her hair piled on top of her head, antique chopsticks holding it up, rhinestone cat-eye spectacles glinting. She really was one of a kind.
    “It is so wonderful to see you, Charlotte. Give me a hug, for goodness sake. I want to hear all about Paris.” Then the elderly woman paused, looking at her young friend more carefully. “What has happened? Are you all right?”
    Charlotte pushed gently past her and went into the kitchen, where she knew there was a TV. “Can I put on the tv, Jan? Something bad has happened to Dad.”
    Janet gasped and rushed after her, finding the remote underneath a fluffy gray cat and switching on the TV. The cat was annoyed and stalked off, tail twitching.
    “Calm down, Brutus, you weren’t watching anyway.”
    Janet McTavish was, as her name suggested, originally from Scotland, but four decades in the United States had softened her accent considerably. She and her favorite pupil stood and waited for CNN to tell them what they needed to know. And then, suddenly, there was a photo of Jacob Williams, and the announcer was talking.
    “Today, Wall Street was thrown into disarray when one of itsgiants, Jacob Williams, was arrested for securities fraud. Spokesmen for the SEC and the FBI issued the following statement.”
    The video cut to a press conference, where a man who didn’t look very threatening was talking about Charlotte’s father as if he were a criminal.
    “For more than five years, the SEC and the FBI, working together, have been building a case against Mr. Williams, who has held the confidence of some of our country’s leaders, many of our major banks, and thousands of individual investors. At times, we didn’t think we would ever gather the evidence we needed, so complicated was his web of transactions and funds, but now we are confident that we have a watertight case against him. He is being held without bail in Manhattan, and a preliminary arraignment is scheduled for the morning.”
    Janet took Charlotte’s arm and guided her to a chair, displacing poor Brutus again,