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behind her, startling her out of her thoughts.
    Left or right?
    The horn blared, the driver’s impatience obvious.
    Josey turned left.

Three
    B en took a deep breath. He hated this quarterly meeting with his father. Actually, it was the quarterly report from the chief financial officer to the chief executive officer, but Ben could never shake the feeling that he was in sixth grade, marching to his doom to explain the two Cs he’d gotten. Despite the fact that Ben had graduated as the valedictorian, Dad had always held those two Cs against him. Hell, he wouldn’t be surprised if the old man threw them back in his face today.
    Ben was getting ahead of himself. Maybe this would go well.
    And pigs might sprout wings, he thought as he knocked. The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could go back to running the business.
    “Dad?”
    “Come in.”
    Ben swung the door open and, just like he did every time he went into Dad’s office, he grimaced at the piles of paper that covered every available surface. Although it hadn’t been an official reason for moving to the new building, Ben had hoped that relocating would help Dad pare down the pit of paperwork.
    It hadn’t. Bruce Bolton was the kind of old school that believed “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” was a battle cry in the war against technology. Bobby had gotten Dad on a computer and set up email, but the old man still insisted on printing out every single piece of electronic communication and then “filing” it according to a system that no one but he understood. Hell, the last time Ben had ordered a new printer, Dad had ranted about how that old dot-matrix printer that fed the green-and-white-striped paper on reels was the best piece of technology he’d ever owned. That printer had been a dinosaur twenty years ago—just like Dad.
    But facts were facts, and the facts were, Crazy Horse Choppers was still Bruce Bolton’s business. Sure, Billy made the bikes, Ben balanced the books, and Bobby…well, he did something. Bruce was still the sole owner, and he still insisted on approving every single expenditure. Hence the quarterly meeting, where Ben tried to beat some sense into Dad’s head and Dad’s head only got harder.
    “Quarterly report,” Ben said, trying to find a place on Dad’s desk where he could set the file. He’d given up on emailing the report a long time ago.
    “Still in the black?” That was all Dad cared about. His world was black and white—or, more specifically, black and red. He didn’t care about what it took to keep those numbers in the black, and he didn’t even care how much black there was. He only cared that the bottom-line number was black. It seemed to Ben that Dad set a pretty low bar for success.
    “Yes, still in the black. We shipped thirty-seven units, took in orders for forty-five bikes and have our delays down to twenty-eight days.” Of course, Ben had had to get several loans to bridge the gap between delivery and payment, but those facts bored Dad.
    This was no way to run a business in today’s world. If Ben could get Dad to sign off on some modern investment strategies—the same strategies Ben had used to build his own financial portfolio—then they’d have the capital to float their own loans. That was what Ben needed to move the company forward—capital to invest in newer technologies, to hire new workers, to build the company. Ben had a good head for numbers, and he had the well-balanced portfolio to prove it. He’d made millions by being careful.
    Not that any of that mattered to his father.
    Unfortunately, Dad would have none of it. Financial instruments weren’t things Dad could touch. They were not to be trusted. Ben understood those financial instruments. Therefore, Ben was not to be trusted.
    Still, it was part of the ritual to try. “Dad, we need to invest some of the—”
    “Damn it, Ben, you still think I’m going to let a bunch of corrupt bankers take my money on a rigged