# THOMPSON-HAYES: THE INSIDE OUT
## Chapter Eighteen — Patricia Prepares
Patricia suggested the coffee shop.
Not her office, not the apartment. A place on West Sixth with outdoor seating and no connection to any case or company or room where important things had been decided. Neutral ground. Mia had understood the choice immediately — Patricia was proposing a conversation that was not legal and not strategic and needed to live outside the vocabulary of both.
She arrived first. She was already there when Mia came through the gate — outdoor table, two coffees ordered, the specific composure of someone who had prepared for this conversation and was not going to need the preparation because the composure was real.
Mia sat.
"How is the testimony preparation?" Mia said.
"Good," Patricia s
