Page 1

Chapter 1

William Carter Jr.

Watcha Cove, July 2015

A hurricane warning has been issued for Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket Island. We’re expecting wind gusts of up to 110 mph and intense steady rainfall, which might lead to flooding. The governor of Massachusetts has issued a shelter in place advisory. Please remain indoors or find suitable shelter to wait out the storm.

William Carter Jr. mumbled at the television, the emergency broadcast interrupting his regular MSNBC programming.

The rain had started its assault on his Martha’s Vineyard home hours ago. As an attempt at humility, the family referred to the estate as a cottage, but in actuality, the property was spread over twenty-six acres, with a private-access beach, a pool, a solarium, and three real guest cottages. The main house, an eight-bedroom monstrosity, allowed the family to be together while still maintaining individual solitude, an important quality in any Carter home. Every year, over the past two decades, the Carters would decamp to Watcha Cove. It had started as an annual two-month hiatus, where William could escape the pressurized canister of being a CEO and breathe. His two children, off from school and with limited supervision, would join a pack of rich vacationing Northeasterners, becoming practically feral in the process. He enjoyed the feeling of the island, of the sea air and the sunshine, but over the last fifteen years, the size and scale of his growing company meant the idea of a vacation became a much more abstract concept.

Running the property required a full staff, deployed at least one week before the family would arrive to avoid last-minute scrambling. This was accomplished with a lengthy request form called a “pref sheet,” ensuring that the chef and housekeeping staff were aware of everything from who liked to sleep with socks on, to who liked their bacon extra crispy.

For entertainment, Watcha Cove also included a tennis court, basketball court, and squash court, the latter housed in a separate building so that Asher Bennett Carter could practice his beloved sport in peace. There was a movie theater (more humbly known as the “screening room”), a garden where fresh fruits and vegetables were grown for a full “farm to table” experience, and a home gym and infrared sauna for “decompression” and “relaxation.”

But most importantly, the property doubled as another Carter Corporation HQ, with dedicated office space and meeting rooms, making it a convenient tax write-off. So long as the C-suite staff showed up at least one workday out of the week, it was considered an essential asset.

At Watcha Cove, William Carter Jr. ensured everything functioned for his benefit, except for the weather, that is. He watched from a window as the team in charge of coordinating his birthday party scrambled to dismantle the tents and move accommodations indoors. A dozen workers in ponchos and raincoats were being blown back by the intense gusts.

William drew his attention back to the mirror. He was shaving himself, a rare occurrence and indulgence in that it gave him time to himself. He received a routine haircut and shave every other week from the comfort of his own home. It was important that he maintained uniformity in his appearance. Over the years, he’d discovered that as a leader, it was better to give people an image that they could count on, that they could trust: a traditional look from a traditional man.

When he was in his midfifties, genetic disadvantages had finally brought about typical male-pattern baldness. He’d carefully weighed the decision to shave his entire head, but his personal image team delivered research that said that bald Black men were more closely associated with fighting crime (e.g., Samuel L. Jackson as Shaft and Nick Fury) and comedy (e.g., Steve Harvey and Damon Wayans), rather than affluence and stability, so he opted to make peace with his receding hairline. The result—a peppering of gray on the sides and extremely sparse black hair on the top. Because he was dignified, he’d let his hair turn naturally gray.

His facial hair, also dotted in gray, more prominent now that he was coasting toward senescence, was shorn as close as he dared while still being present. When on the Vineyard, William used to relish the opportunity to break with the rigidity in his grooming standards, but those days felt far away now.

Holding his straight razor, he wanted to indulge in the solitude. In the early days of his company, the luxury was to be able to hire people to do everything for him, and now the luxury was being alone. Privacy was an illusion. He pulled the skin under his chin taut and was surprised at how far it had to stretch.

Just as he ran the razor under the water in the sink, his vision went blurry. He shook his head and blinked a few times. When he tried to catch his own reflection, he seemed to be moving out of sync with the man in the mirror.

The razor, a sterling silver Mühle, had been a Father’s Day gift from his CFO, Jermaine Davis. It was simple, industrial, and weighty. When the razor slipped out of his right hand, it clanged loudly into the white porcelain basin of the sink.

William Carter Jr. tried to reach for it and discovered he could not, his arm now tingling with the familiar sensation of pins and needles and yet not responding to his brain’s commands. Suddenly his right leg gave out from beneath him, sending his body careening to the floor. He made a motion to grab the sink with his other hand, but his response time was impossibly slow.

Lying on the ground, he tried to call for someone but couldn’t remember any names. His thoughts rolled away from him like spilled marbles. He thought of his mother in his childhood home, sitting in a secondhand rattan chair reading Ebony magazine. He remembered his high school teacher, beaming with pride when he’d been accepted to Harvard. He heard the crash of his college roommate flinging a failed project model against their apartment wall. He saw his wife sitting across from him in a diner, demonstrating the accents she’d mastered. He saw himself working at his desk, working on a plane, working in a car, working at his son’s soccer game, working before sunrise, working at dinner, working in the middle of the night, working at that very summer house. Numbers and documents and abbreviated correspondence flew around in his head until he saw nothing.

He was gone.