Chapter 16: The Drawer

Nobody in the back room moved.

The buyer held card fourteen out toward me.

"So which of you wrote them?" she said.

"I did."

"He says he did. On camera. With a very nice gold foil."

"Did you open his?"

She frowned. "What?"

"His cards. At dinner. Did you open one and read the inside?"

She thought about it.

"Card nine said something like Thinking of you," she said. "I don't remember. It was very pretty paper."

I took card nine off the drying line and opened it and held it up.

Sit with me anyway.

She looked at it for a long moment.

"Somebody's lying to me," she said. "I'll find out who in New York."

She put card fourteen in her tote and left with her hour exactly used up.

At seven, out of habit, I walked to the old man's office.

Pip took one look at my face and said, "You go."

Leon was behind the desk with one green lamp on.

I told him all of it.

When I finished, he sat for a while with his hands flat on the desk.

Then he took the little brass key out of his pocket.

"Since my aunt came for them, I keep thinking she'll come back," he said. "I keep thinking someone else will read them first."

"So read them."

"Will you stay?"

"Sit with you anyway?"

He almost smiled.

"Yes."

I came around the desk and sat on the arm of the old man's chair, with my hand on his shoulder.

He unlocked the bottom left drawer.

He took out the first envelope, the one at the very bottom of the stack, the oldest.

It had never been sealed.

The card had a drawing of a baseball on it, badly done, in pencil.

The old man had drawn it himself.

Inside, in his spidery capitals:

WIN, ELEVEN, YOUR FATHER SAYS DENVER HAS A TEAM.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Secret Lover Is Actually My Boss from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.