Chapter 9: The Folder

"Eleven more months for what?" I asked.

Trevor blinked.

For one moment he looked like a man who had heard himself.

"For the IPO," he said. "Lockup period. You know that. Six months for the shares, five for the board."

"That adds up to eleven."

"Obviously." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "I'm drunk. Move."

"You said you needed my signature on anything you put in front of me."

"I said a lot of things."

"You did."

I kept my hand in my pocket, on the phone.

The door opened behind him.

Nathaniel stood in it, with two security guards in the corridor at his back.

"Mr. Langley," he said. "The building is closing."

Trevor turned.

For a second I thought he might swing at him.

Then he looked at the guards, and at the phones some of the guests were still holding in the hall, and his shoulders came down.

"This isn't over," he said to me.

"No," I said. "It isn't."

He walked out between the guards without looking at either of them.

Nathaniel waited until the footsteps had faded.

"Did he touch you?"

"No."

"What did he say?"

I took my phone out and stopped the recording.

"That he needed me for eleven more months."

His face did not change.

His hand tightened on the doorframe until the knuckles went white.

"Play it," he said.

I played it.

He listened to all of it, standing very still, and when it ended he took a breath through his nose.

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