he offices of the senior executives were on the fourteenth floor, situated on both sides of a long, wide, carpeted corridor that fanned out in opposite directions from the circular reception area. Portraits of all the Bancroft presidents hung in ornate gilt frames on the walls of the reception area above the Queen Anne sofas and chairs that were provided for visitors. To the left of the receptionist's desk was the office and private conference room that had historically belonged to Bancroft's president. To the right were the executive offices with secretaries seated outside them separated by functional as well as ornamental partitions of carved mahogany.

Meredith stepped off the elevator and glanced at the portrait of James Bancroft, the founder of Bancroft & Company, her great-grandfather, twice removed. Good afternoon. Great-grandfather, she said silently. She'd been saying hello to him every day forever, and she knew it was silly, but there was something about the man with his thick blond hair, full beard, and stiff collar that filled her with affection. It was his eyes. Despite his pose of extreme dignity, there was daring and devilment in those bright blue eyes.

And he had been daring—that and innovative as well. In 1891 James Bancroft had decided to break with tradition and offer the same price to all customers. Until that time, local customers everywhere paid lower prices than strangers, regardless of whether they came to a feed store or to Bancroft & Company. James Bancroft, however, had daringly placed a discreet sign in the window of his store for passers-by to see: ONE PRICE FOR EVERYONE.

Sometime later, James Cash Penney, another enterprising storekeeper in Wyoming, had made the policy his own, and in the ensuing decades, it was J. C. Penney who got the credit for it. Nevertheless, Meredith knew, because she'd found it in an old diary, that James Bancroft's decision to charge one price to all had predated J. C. Penney's.

Portraits of her other ancestors hung in identical frames along the walls, but Meredith paid them scarcely a glance. Her thoughts were already switching to the weekly executive staff meeting that lay ahead.

The conference room was unusually silent when Meredith entered it, and the tension in the air was almost tangible. Like Meredith, everyone was hoping Philip Bancroft might give some clue today as to who his temporary successor was likely to be. Sliding into a chair near the end of the long table, she nodded to the nine men and one woman who, like her, were all vice presidents, and who comprised Bancroft's executive staff. Bancroft's hierarchy was simply arranged and efficient. In addition to the controller who headed the financial division, and the store's chief counsel who headed the legal division, there were five more vice presidents who were also general merchandise managers. Combined, those five men were responsible for buying all the merchandise within the giant department store and all its branch stores. Separately, they were each responsible for a large, preestablished group of merchandise. Although each of them had managers who reported to them, and buyers and clerks who, in turn, reported to the managers, the ultimate responsibility for the success or the failure of their individual merchandise groups fell on their shoulders.

Two more of the vice presidents at the conference table were in charge of activities that helped to move the merchandise out of the stores—the vice president of advertising and sales promotion whose group planned the store's sales campaigns and bought the radio, television, and newspaper space to advertise them; and the vice president of visual presentation, for whom Lisa worked, whose staff was responsible for displaying all the merchandise within the stores.

Meredith's position as senior vice president of operations put her in charge of everything else that involved the running of the stores, from security and personnel to expansion and forward planning. It was in this latter area that Meredith had found her niche and made her mark in the retailing community. In addition to the five new stores that had been opened under her direction, the sites for five more stores had been selected, and construction was already under way at two of them.

The only other woman at the conference table was in charge of creative merchandising. It was her responsibility to predict fashion trends in advance, and to make recommendations to the general merchandising managers. Theresa Bishop, who held that position, was seated across the table from Meredith, talking quietly with the controller.

"Good morning." Her father's voice sounded strong and brisk as he strode into the conference room and took his place at the head of the table. His next words jarred everyone into a state of electrified expectation. "If you're wondering if any decision has been reached as to an interim president, the answer is no. When it is, you will all be duly advised. Can we now dispense with that topic and get down to the business of department stores. Ted"—his narrowed gaze swerved to Ted Rothman, the vice president who was in charge of purchasing cosmetics, intimate apparel, shoes, and coats—"according to last night's reports from all our stores, sales of coats are down by eleven percent compared to this same week last year. What's your answer for that?"

"My answer," Rothman replied with a smile, "is that it's unseasonably warm, Philip, and customers aren't concentrating on outer clothing as much as they normally would at this time of the year. It's to be expected." As he spoke, he stood up and walked over to one of the computer screens built into a wall cabinet, and quickly pressed a series of keys on the keyboard. The store's computer systems had long ago been updated at Meredith's urging—and at considerable expense—so that at any given instant, sales figures were available from every department in every one of their stores, along with comparisons based on this time last week, or last month, or last year, "Sales of coats in Boston, where the temperature this weekend dropped to a more normal seasonal level are"—he paused, watching the screen— "up by ten percent over last week."

"I'm not interested in last week! I want to know why our coat sales are down from last year."

Meredith, who'd been on the phone with a friend at Women's Wear Daily last night, looked at her glowering father. "According to WWD," she said, "coat sales are down in all the chains. They're printing a story on it in the next issue."

"I don't want excuses, I want explanations," her father bit out. Inwardly, Meredith winced a little—but not much. From the day she'd forced him to acknowledge her value as a Bancroft executive, her father had gone out of his way to prove to her, and to everyone else, that his daughter got no favoritism from him. Quite the opposite, in fact. "The explanation," she said calmly, "is jackets. Winter jacket sales are up by twelve percent, nationwide. They're taking up the slack in coat sales."

Philip heard her, but he did not give her the small courtesy of acknowledging the worth of her input by so much as a nod. Instead, he turned on Rothman, his voice clipped. "What are we supposed to do with all the coats we'll have left?"

"We cut back on our orders for coats, Philip," Rothman said patiently. "We don't expect to have any surplus." When he didn't add that Theresa Bishop had been the one to advise him to buy jackets heavily and cut back on coats, Gordon Mitchell, the vice president who was responsible for dresses, accessories, and children's wear, was quick to point out Rothman's omission. "As I recall," he sad, "the jackets were purchased instead of coats because Theresa told us the trend toward shorter skirts would cause women to look toward jackets this year rather than coats." Mitchell had spoken up, Meredith knew, not because he gave a damn whether Theresa got credit, but because he didn't want Rothman to get the credit. Mitchell never missed an opportunity to try to make the other merchandising vice presidents look less competent than himself. He was a petty, malicious man who had always repelled Meredith despite his good looks.

"I'm sure we're all well aware and appreciative of Theresa's fashion clairvoyance," Philip said with stinging derision. He did not like women among his vice presidents, and everyone knew it. Theresa rolled her eyes, but she did not look to Meredith for empathy; to do so would have showed a kind of mutual dependency, ergo, weakness, and they both knew better than to show any sign of that to their formidable president. "What about the new perfume that rock star is going to introduce—" Philip demanded, glancing at his notes and then at Ted Rothman.

"Charisma." Rothman provided the name of the perfume and the celebrity. "Her name is Cheryl Aderly— she's a rock star/sex symbol who—"

"I know who she is!" Philip said shortly. "Will Bancroft's get to debut her perfume or not?"

"We don't know yet," Rothman replied uneasily. Perfumes were one of the highest profit items in a department store, and being given the exclusive right in a city to introduce an important new scent was a coup. It meant free advertising from the perfume company, free publicity when the star came to the store to promote it, and a huge influx of women shoppers who flocked to the counters to try it and buy it.

"What do you mean, you don't know?" Philip snapped. "You said it was virtually in the bag."

"Aderly is hedging," he admitted. "As I understand it, she's eager to shed her rock-star image and do some serious acting, but—"

Philip threw down his pen in disgust. "For Christ's sake! I don't give a damn about her career goals! What I want to know is whether Bancroft's is going to snag the debut of her perfume, and if not, why not!"

"I'm trying to answer you, Philip," he said in a cautious, placating voice. "Aderly wanted to debut her perfume at a classy store to lend her a classy new image."

"What could be classier than Bancroft's?" Philip demanded, scowling, and without waiting for a reply to that rhetorical question, he said, "Did you find out who else she's considering?"

"Marshall Field's."

"That's a crock! Field's doesn't begin to outclass us and they can't do the job for her that we can!"

"At the moment, our 'class' seems to be the problem." Ted Rothman held up his hand when Philip's face turned an angry red. "You see, when we began negotiating the deal, Aderly wanted that class image, but now her agent and her advisers have half convinced her that it's a mistake for her to try to ditch the sexpot/rock star image that's won her so many teenage fans. For that reason, they're talking to Field's—looking at them as a sort of compromise image."

"I want that debut, Ted," Philip stated in a flat tone. "I mean that. Offer them a bigger cut of the profits if necessary, or tell them we'll share some of their local advertising costs. Don't offer more than what it will take, but get that debut."

"I'll do my best."

"Haven't you been doing that all along?" Philip challenged. Without waiting for a reply, he turned to the vice president sitting beside Rothman, then one at a time he worked his way around the table, subjecting each VP to the same curt cross-examination that Rothman had received. Sales were excellent and each vice president was more than capable; Philip knew it, but as his health had worsened, so had his disposition. Gordon Mitchell was the last to come under Philip's fire: "The Dominic Avanti gowns look like hell—they look like last year's leftovers, and they aren't selling."

"One of the reasons they aren't selling," Mitchell announced with a bitter, accusing glance at Lisa's boss, "is because your people went out of their way to make the Avanti items look ridiculous! What was the idea of putting sequined hats and gloves on those mannequins?"

Lisa's boss, Neil Nordstrom, regarded the angry VP down the length of his nose, his expression placid. "At least," he commented, "Lisa Pontini and her crew managed to make that stuff look interesting, which it wasn't."

"Enough, gentlemen," Philip snapped a little wearily. "Sam," he said, turning to speak to Sam Green, the store's chief legal counsel, who was seated on his immediate left, "what about that lawsuit that woman filed against us—the one who claimed she tripped in the furniture department and hurt her back?"

"She's a fraud," Sam Green replied. "Our insurance carrier just discovered she's filed four other lawsuits against other retailers for the same thing. They aren't going to settle with her. She'll have to take us to court first, and she'll lose if she does."

Philip nodded and directed a cool glance at Meredith. "What about the real estate contracts on the land in Houston you're so determined to buy?"

"Sam and I are working out the final details. The seller has agreed to divide the property, and we're ready to draw up a contract."

He acknowledged her response with another curt nod and turned in his chair to address the controller, who was seated on his right. "Allen, what do you have to report?"

The controller glanced at the lined yellow pad in front of him. As chief financial officer of the Bancroft Corporation, Allen Stanley was responsible for all things financial, including the store's credit department. His twenty years of stressful, intellectual combat with Philip Bancroft had, in Meredith's opinion, probably caused Allen to lose much of his hair as well as making him look sixty-five rather than the fifty-five he was. Controllers and their staffs did not generate income for the store. Neither did the legal or the personnel divisions. As far as Philip was concerned, those three divisions had to be tolerated like a necessary evil, but he regarded them as little more than leeches. Moreover, he despised the fact that the heads of those three divisions were forever giving him reasons why he couldn't do something instead of telling him how he could do it. Allen Stanley still had five years to go until he could take early retirement, and there were times when Meredith wondered how he was going to make it. When Allen spoke, his voice was carefully precise and noticeably hesitant. "We had a record number of new applications for credit cards last month— almost eight thousand of them."

"How many did you approve?"

"Roughly sixty-five percent."

"How in the hell," Philip spat out furiously, tapping the end of his Waterman pen on the table to emphasize each word, "can you justify rejecting three thousand out of eight thousand applications? We're trying to attract new card holders, and you're rejecting them as fast as the applications come in! I shouldn't have to tell you how profitable interest on those cards is to our operation. And I'm not even counting the loss of revenue from purchases those three thousand people will not make at Bancroft's because they can't shop here on credit!" As if he suddenly recalled his bad heart, Meredith watched him make a visible effort to calm himself.

"The applications we rejected were from people who aren't credit worthy, Philip," Allen stated in a firm, reasonable tone. "Deadbeats, as you well know, do not pay for what they purchase or the interest on their accounts. You may think rejecting those applications cost us money, but the way I see it, my staff has saved Bancroft's a fortune in uncollectible debts. I've established basic requirements that must be met before we issue anyone a Bancroft's card, and the fact is that three thousand people could not meet those requirements."

"Because the requirements are too damned high," Gordon Mitchell put in smoothly.

"What makes you say that?" Philip demanded eagerly, always prepared to find fault with the controller.

"I say that," Mitchell replied with malicious satisfaction, "because my niece told me that Bancroft's just rejected her application for a credit card."

"Then she wasn't credit worthy," retorted the controller.

"Really?" he drawled. "Then why did Field's and Macy's just issue her new cards? According to my niece, who's a junior in college, her rejection letter said that she had an inadequate credit history. I presume that means you couldn't find out anything about her, either bad or good."

The controller nodded, his pale, lined face creased into a glower. "Obviously, if that's what our letter said, that's what happened."

"What about Field's and Macy's?" Philip demanded, leaning forward. "They obviously have access to more information than you and your people do."

"No, they don't. We all use the same credit bureau for reports. It's obvious their credit requirements are more lenient than mine."

"They aren't yours, dammit, this store is not yours—"

Meredith interceded, knowing that while the controller would adamantly defend his own actions, and his staff's, he rarely had the spine to point out Philip's own mistakes to him, including this particular error in judgment, which happened to be Philip's own. Motivated by an unselfish desire to defend Allen Stanley and a very selfish desire to avoid another lengthy wrangle that the rest of the executives, including herself, would all have to sit through, Meredith interrupted her father's tirade. "The last time this topic came up," she told him, managing to sound both courteous and objective, "you felt that history had shown us that college students are often bad credit risks. You instructed Allen to deny credit cards to all college students except in rare instances."

Silence descended on the conference room—the eerie, watchful silence that often ensued whenever Meredith opposed her father, but today it was heavier than ever, because everyone was watching for any sign of leniency in Philip's rigid attitude toward his daughter—a sign that would indicate that she was his choice to succeed him. In truth, her father was no more exacting than his counterparts at Saks or Macy's or any other large retailer, and Meredith knew it. It was his brusque, autocratic style that she objected to, not the demands he made. The executives gathered around the conference table had chosen retailing as a career, knowing beforehand that it was a frenetic, demanding business where sixty-hour weeks were the norm, not the exception, for anyone who wanted to make it to the top—and stay there. Meredith, like the others, had known that, just as she had known that in her case she would have to work harder, longer, and more effectively than all the others if she was to claim the presidency that would have automatically been hers had she had the foresight to be born a male.

Now she entered into the topic under debate, knowing full well that while she might earn her father's respect, she would incur a disproportionate amount of his resentment. He sent a disdainful glance her way. "What would you suggest, Meredith?" he asked, neither admitting nor denying that the rule had been his.

"The same thing I suggested last time—that college students with no bad credit information be granted credit cards, but with a low limit—say five hundred dollars—for the first year. At the end of the year if Allen's people are satisfied with the payment records, then the cardholder's maximum can be increased."

For a moment he simply looked at her, then he turned away and without appearing to have heard her, he continued the meeting. An hour later he closed the deerskin folder with his meeting notes in it and glanced at the executives at the conference table. "I have an inordinately heavy schedule of meetings today, gentlemen—and ladies—" he added in a condescending tone that always made Meredith long to take a poke at him. "We'll have to omit going over the best sellers for the week. Thank you for coming. The meeting is adjourned. Allen," he said in an offhand voice, "go ahead and offer charge accounts with a five-hundred-dollar limit to college students so long as they don't have bad credit."

That was it. He didn't give Meredith recognition for the idea, or acknowledge her in any way. He behaved as he most often did when his talented daughter showed excellent judgment: He reluctantly took her suggestions without ever admitting their value, or hers, to the store. But they were valuable, and everyone knew it. Including Philip Bancroft.

Meredith gathered up her notes and left the conference room beside Gordon Mitchell. Of all the candidates for the role of interim president, Mitchell and Meredith were the two most likely to be given the job; Mitchell knew it, and so did Meredith. At thirty-seven, he had more years in retailing than Meredith, and that gave him a slight edge over her, but he'd joined Bancroft's only three years before. Meredith had been with Bancroft's seven years, and, more important, she had successfully spearheaded Bancroft's expansion into other states; she had argued and cajoled and ultimately persuaded her father and then the store's bankers to finance that expansion. She herself had chosen the locations for the new stores, and she herself remained deeply involved in all the endless details of building and stocking those stores. Because of all that, as well as her prior experience in Bancroft's other divisions, she had one thing to offer the board of directors that no other candidate for president had, including Gordon Mitchell, and that was versatility. Versatility, and a broader range of understanding of store operations. She stole a sideways glance at Gordon, and saw the calculating expression in his eyes as he looked at her. "Philip told me he's taking a cruise at the doctor's orders, when he goes on leave," Gordon began as they walked down the carpeted hallway past the secretaries posted in cubicles outside the vice presidents' offices. "Where is he planning—" He broke off as his secretary stood up at her desk and, raising her voice slightly, said, "Mr. Mitchell, you have a call on your private line from Mr. Bender. His secretary says it's rather urgent."

"I told you not to answer my private line, Debbie," he snapped. Excusing himself to Meredith, Mitchell stalked past his secretary into his office, and closed the door.

Outside his office, Debbie Novotny bit her lip, watching Meredith Bancroft walk away. Whenever "Mr. Bender's secretary" called, Gordon got tense and excited, and he always closed the door when they talked. For nearly a year, he'd been promising to divorce his wife so that he could marry Debbie, and now she was suddenly terrified that the reason he'd been stalling was because "Mr. Bender's secretary" was actually a phony name for a new lover. He'd made other promises he hadn't kept, too, like saying he would promote Debbie to a buyer and give her a raise. Her heart hammering in her throat, Debbie gingerly picked up her phone. Gordon's voice was low, alarmed: "I told you to stop calling me at the office!"

"Calm down, this won't take long," Bender said. "I've still got a shitload of those silk blouses you bought left over, and a mountain of that costume jewelry. I'll give you twice your usual cut if you'll take the stuff off my hands." It was a man's voice, and Debbie was so relieved that she started to hang up when it struck her that what Bender was talking about sounded like bribery.

"I can't," Gordon snapped. "I've seen that last batch of blouses and the jewelry you shipped in here, and it's mediocre crap! We've gotten away with our arrangement this long only because your stuff had some quality. If someone around here gets a close look at that last batch of stuff, they're going to demand to know who bought it and why. When they do, my merchandise managers are going to point the finger straight at me and say I told them to buy from you."

"If you're worried about it," Bender said, "fire both of them, then they won't be around to point the finger."

"I'll have to, but that doesn't change anything. Look, Bender," Gordon said with cold finality, "our relationship has been profitable for both of us, but it's over. It's too risky. Secondly, I think I'm going to be offered the interim presidency here. When that happens, I'll be completely out of the merchandising end of things."

Bender's voice turned menacing. "Listen to me very closely, you schmuck, because I'm only going to lay this out for you one time: You and I have had a very good thing going, and your ambitions are no concern of mine. I paid you a hundred thousand bucks last year—"

"I said the deal's over."

"It's not over until I say it is, and it's a long way from over. Cross me, and I'll make a phone call to old man Bancroft—"

"And tell him what?" Gordon jeered. "That I refused your bribe to buy your crap?"

"No, I'll tell him about how I'm an honest businessman, and you've been bleeding me for kickbacks before you'll let your people buy my excellent merchandise. That's not bribery, that's extortion." He paused a minute to let that sink in, then he added, "And there's always the IRS to worry about, isn't there? If they were to get an anonymous phone call and start checking you out, I'll bet they'd find out that you've got an extra hundred thousand bucks somewhere that you didn't declare. Income tax evasion is fraud, sweetheart. Extortion and fraud."

In the midst of Gordon's growing panic, he heard a sound on the telephone—a strange, muffled sound of a file cabinet being closed. "Hold on a minute," he said quickly, "I need to get something out of my briefcase." Ignoring his briefcase which was lying on his desk where he'd left it, he put the phone down, then he walked over to his office door and silently turned the knob, opening it a crack: His secretary was seated at her desk, a telephone receiver to her ear, her hand over the mouthpiece—and only one phone line was lit up on her telephone. White-faced with fury and panic, he closed the door and returned to his desk. "We'll have to finish our discussion tonight," he snapped. "Call me at home."

"I'm warning you—"

"All right, all right! Call me at home. We'll work something out."

Somewhat appeased, Bender said, "That's better. I'm not completely unreasonable. Since you have to turn down Bancroft's job, I'll raise your cut."

Gordon hung up the phone and punched the button on the intercom. "Debbie, will you come in here?" he said, then he released the button and added, "Stupid, meddling bitch!"

A moment later Debbie opened the door, her stomach in knots, her illusions about him all but shattered, terrified that her face would betray her guilty knowledge.

"Close the door and lock it," Gordon said, forcing a husky note into his voice as he came around his desk and walked over to the sofa. "Come here," he added.

Confused by the sensual note in his voice and the contrasting coldness in his eyes, Debbie approached him warily, then stifled a cry of panicked surprise when he yanked her into his arms. "I know you were listening in on my phone call," Gordon said, forcing himself to ignore the impulse to put his hands around her throat. "I'm doing it for us, Debbie. When my wife is finished with me after the divorce, I'll be cleaned out. I need money for us—to give you the things you should have. You understand, don't you, sweetheart?"

Debbie looked up at his handsome face and saw the endearing pleading in his eyes, and she understood. She believed. His hands were unzipping her dress, pulling it down, and when his fingers shoved into her bra and bikini pants, she pressed against him, offering him her body. Her love. Her silence.

Meredith was just picking up the telephone when her secretary passed her office door. "I was at the copy machine," Phyllis explained, walking into the office. At twenty-seven, Phyllis Tilsher was intelligent, intuitive, and completely sensible in every way except one: She was irresistibly attracted to irresponsible, unreliable men. It was a weakness that she had laughingly discussed with Meredith during the years that they had worked together. "Jerry Keaton in personnel called while you were gone," Phyllis continued, and with her usual smiling efficiency she began to report the calls she'd taken for Meredith. "He said there's a possibility one of our clerks is going to file a discrimination suit"

"Has he talked to the legal department?"

"Yes, but he wants to talk to you too."

"I have to go back to the architect's office to finish looking over the plans for the Houston store," Meredith said. "Tell Jerry I can see him first thing Monday morning."

"Okay. Mr. Savage also called." She broke off as Sam Green knocked politely on the door frame. "Excuse me," he said to them both, and then he added, "Meredith, can you spare me a few minutes?"

Meredith nodded. "What's up?"

"I just got off the phone with Ivan Thorp," he said, frowning as he walked up to her desk. "There may be a hitch in the deal for the Houston land."

Meredith had spent more than a month in Houston looking for suitable sites on which Bancroft's could build not only a new store, but an entire shopping center. She'd finally located an absolutely ideal spot within sight of The Galleria, and they'd been negotiating with Thorp Development, who owned the property, for months. "What sort of a hitch?"

"When I told him we're ready to write a contract, he said he may already have a buyer for all their properties, including that one."

Thorp Development was a Houston holding company that owned several office buildings and shopping centers as well as undeveloped land, and it was no secret that the Thorp brothers wanted to sell the entire company, that had been in the Wall Street Journal. "Do you believe they really have a buyer? Or is he trying to get us to make a higher opening offer for the land?"

"The latter probably, but I wanted you to know there could be some competition we didn't anticipate."

"Then we'll have to work it out, Sam. I want to build our next store on that piece of property more than I've ever wanted to build any other store anywhere else. The site is perfect. Houston is starting to recover from its slump, but building prices are still nice and low. By the time we're ready to open, their economy will be booming."

Meredith glanced at her watch and stood up. It was three o'clock on a Friday afternoon which meant traffic would already be getting heavy. "I have to run," she said with an apologetic smile. "See if your friend in Houston can find out anything about Thorp having another buyer."

"I've already called him. He's checking around."