PART 1
The little girl had been waiting beneath the relentless rain for nearly two hours before I understood that I was the person she had been waiting for.
I had no idea who she was. I hadn’t even realized my wallet was missing.
I emerged from a high-stakes board meeting on the 38th floor of my corporate headquarters in downtown Austin with only one thing on my mind: going home. At sixty-one, I owned four commercial high-rises, oversaw hundreds of employees, and had a daughter who hadn’t returned one of my calls in almost three years.
On that rainy Tuesday afternoon, those facts seemed completely unrelated—until one of my senior managers gestured through the lobby’s glass doors.
“Security should really move that kid along,” he remarked, adjusting his tie. “She’s been standing out there in the storm for hours.”
I stopped and stared outside.
She looked no older than eight. An oversized green raincoat hung from her small frame, her sneakers were drenched, and she clutched a plastic grocery bag tightly against her chest.
Our head of security approached from behind me. “Mr. Vance, I tried to bring her inside three times. I offered to hold whatever she’s carrying in the lobby office, but she refuses to hand it over.”
“What is she holding?” I asked.
“She insists it belongs to you personally.”
I slipped my hand into the inside pocket of my tailored suit jacket.
Nothing.
For the first time that day, the million-dollar deal I had just finalized disappeared entirely from my thoughts. I pushed through the heavy glass entrance and stepped into the cold rain.
The girl noticed me and carefully removed a battered dark-brown leather wallet from the plastic bag.
My wallet.
“Are you Arthur Vance?” she asked, her quiet voice nearly swallowed by the traffic.
I nodded.
