Chapter 2

It took some time, but I was finally able to get back to work. I spent almost all of my time working on various projects. I tried to let work fill the void in my life. That's when I got the letter. It was from an attorney in Phoenix. It said that my father had died in prison. And that I had to come back to Phoenix to settle his estate.

My brother met me at the airport and we drove to the attorney's office for the reading of the will. The will basically left the proceeds of a fifty thousand dollar life insurance policy to my brother and the house and the land to me. There was a letter written by my father addressed to us. It must have been written in prison; in it he apologized for the abuse and the beatings he gave us. He apologized for taking our mother away from us; and that he understood why William had left. It sounded sincere; it was tough to hate him after that. We signed some paperwork, and left. On the ride back to Bill's house, we both determined that we had no feelings for him one way or the other. Sad.

The next day, I flew back home. For the next month or so, everything got back to normal. Then within a two week period I received two letters that would change the direction of my life forever.

The first was from a large developer from Scottsdale, Arizona inquiring about the availability of the Phoenix property. The other was from a law office representing a very large software development company inquiring about the availability of one of my patents. The letter about the land I filed away for later consideration. The second got me curious.

I went back through my old files to determine what the patent was for; then began to investigate the software company and why they would be interested in that particular patent. I had a copy of their latest version of their widely used software. With that and a key to the source code that I received from a friend in the business: probably obtained illegally, I found something very interesting indeed. It appeared that their software was infringing on my patent. Apparently, someone in their organization had not done their homework timely; and that, now that the software was released they had to either get the rights to use it from me, paying me royalties, or, buy it outright. In either case, it could mean a very big payday for me.

That night, as I lay in bed, I thought about my Michelle, my future; and the direction that my life should take. There was nothing holding me here. If everything worked out, I would have more money than I could ever spend. The only family that I had left was my brother back in Arizona. I wanted to do something for others, to get involved in something meaningful; something worthwhile. I couldn't sleep, so I turned on the TV. I was watching some cop show, a rerun about run a ways, living on the street, young girls turning to prostitution to survive. Then it hit me. That's what I could do; that's a worthwhile goal. If I could take young girls off the street, give them a chance to get their lives straightened out, get them educated and able to support themselves legally, in essence, rescue them; that would be a noble cause indeed.