“I’m sorry, but Mr. Sterling doesn’t see anyone without an appointment,” the receptionist said, looking down at the small girl standing before her desk in the lobby of the Sterling Group’s downtown headquarters. Seven-year-old Daisy Miller clutched a wrinkled envelope, her brown eyes fixed on the woman in the expensive suit with a quiet, steady resolve.
“But it’s important,” the girl insisted. “My mom said I had to give this letter to Mike Sterling personally. No one else.”
“Sweetie,” Jane, the receptionist, explained patiently, “Mr. Sterling is a very busy man. He’s in meetings with investors and the board all day.”
“My mom is dying,” Daisy said quietly. Jane froze. The girl was dressed in clean but clearly inexpensive clothes. Her dark hair was neatly braided, and her face held a seriousness that didn’t belong on a seven-year-old.
“What did you say?” Jane asked, her voice softening.
“Mom is very sick. The doctors say she doesn’t have much time. She wrote this letter to Mike and told me I had to make sure he got it.”
Jane had worked for Mike Sterling for five years. She was the gatekeeper, trained to filter out everyone from aggressive reporters to eccentric inventors. But something about this child made her hesitate.
“What is your mother’s name?”
“Hope Miller.”
Jane scanned the digital Rolodex. The name wasn’t there.
“And how does your mother know Mr. Sterling?”
“They were friends. A long time ago, when I was a baby. Mom says he needs to know.”
The girl paused.
“Needs to know what?”
“The truth.”
Jane checked the clock. Her boss had twenty minutes before his next briefing. Usually, he spent this time reviewing reports and hated being interrupted.
“Look, honey,” Jane began, “why don’t you leave the letter with me, and I’ll give it to him as soon as he’s free?”
“No,” Daisy said, shaking her head firmly. “Mom said: only in his hands. And she said if he saw me, he would listen.”
“Why does she think that?”
Daisy looked at her with those large, solemn eyes:
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