Chapter 10: Somebody Close to Both of Us

Quentin's POV

She came to my office door at seven that night.

She held a cream envelope out in front of her with both hands.

"This is yours," Claire said. "I haven't opened it."

The seal on the back was whole.

On the front, in my father's slanting hand, was my father's own return address.

Across it, in blue ballpoint, someone had written REFUSED.

I had to hold the doorframe.

"Where did you find this?"

"At the bottom of my father's box. He refused it unread twelve years ago, and the mailroom kept it."

"He never could throw it away," she said.

"You could have burned it."

"Yes."

"Nobody would have known."

"I would have," she said.

She stood in the doorway in her school cardigan and did not step one foot over the line of my carpet.

"I didn't come to fight, Quentin. He wrote it to my father, but it's about yours, and you should be the one to read it."

She stepped back.

"That's all. I'm leaving."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Term two," she said, and turned around.

I watched the elevator doors close on her.

Then I sat down at my desk, and I slit the envelope with the letter opener my father had left in his own drawer.

One sheet.

His handwriting, in the black fountain pen he used to sign checks.

Frank,

I hear you've been given papers that say I took money from the firm.

I never did.

I know how that looks from where you sit.

But please hear me first.

Somebody close to both of us is lying to one of us.

I don't yet know which of you it is, and I'm sorry to say it.

Don't sign anything until we have spoken.

If I'm wrong, burn this and forgive an old friend his fear.

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