Chapter 10: The Drawer

Patrick's POV

I left the courtroom before the judge finished, because I could not afford to be seen in it.

At seven that evening I was alone on the fourteenth floor with a pot of coffee and a drawer I had not opened in nine years.

I unlocked it.

At the bottom, under tax files, there was one folded sheet of paper.

I knew it by heart, but I read it again.

It was a printout of an email, dated the week after the MIT competition.

The first message was mine.

Ms. Lindell, I judged your entry. It was the best thing I saw all year. I would like to fund you, no strings. Tell me what you need.

Under it was the reply, sent from her address four hours later.

Thank you, but my partner handles all business matters. Please don't write again.

I had read that line often enough to know where the commas were.

For nine years I had believed it.

I had thought she had weighed a stranger's offer against the man beside her at the podium, and picked him.

I spent those years building a fund and trying to forget her.

I bought a stake in his company anyway.

That last part I told no one.

On Sunday, in a diner, I had watched Cora Lindell hear the words you should have won, and I had seen her throat move.

Nobody had ever said it to her.

She had not turned down my offer.

She had never read it.

I put the page flat on the desk and sat looking at it until the building went quiet.

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