For over two decades, he had meticulously reconstructed the crime. He tracked down old contracts, found former employees who were willing to talk, saved bank records Leonard thought were destroyed, and kept every piece of correspondence. That entire file was now sitting on a federal investigator’s desk.
A criminal investigation had been opened three months prior, with Leonard kept completely in the dark. The paper in the envelope was a copy of a formal indictment, backed by forensic accounting that proved the signatures on the buyout documents were forged. The scale of the theft was classified as major fraud, and because of the nature of the documents, the statute of limitations had been bypassed. Leonard was looking at up to ten years in prison.
Leonard turned a deep shade of red and shoved his chair back, standing up. He began shouting, calling Bill a hypocrite and a loser. Bill remained perfectly calm. He replied that he wasn’t playing a role; he was simply being patient, which is a very different thing.
The businessman threatened to ruin Bill, to “crush him for good.” Allison’s father reminded him that he had already tried that twenty-three years ago when he stole his livelihood and sent his wife to an early grave. He spoke about burying Sarah and having to explain to a five-year-old why her mother was never coming home.
His voice was steady, but his eyes held a lifetime of pain. Bill asked his former partner if he really thought he would just forget or offer forgiveness. Life had taught him how to wait, just as it had taught him the cost of Leonard’s greed.
Bill reminded Leonard how he had spent years bragging about his “self-made” success to his son, never once considering the lives he had stepped on to build his empire. Eleanor stood frozen like a statue. Susan was clutching her chest, and Mike was staring blankly into space…
