Tonight still work?
The reply comes a few minutes later:
Yes, I’ve got some things to do, but Seven still works. Don't be late. I'm hungry and impatient.
Hungry and impatient. The woman turns a dinner confirmation into a dare.
The phone on my desk rings, the internal line, the one that connects the floors. The display readsWard Aldrich. I roll my neck once before I pick up.
"Good morning."
"Come upstairs." Ward's voice is warm, unhurried, cadenced as an invitation rather than a summons.
The warmth is the tell. Ward is at his most gentle when the blade is already positioned.
"I'll be right up."
I climb the stairs to the third floor. The air cools with every flight, the stone walls holding October's cold the way the wood downstairs holds sound, absorbing it, keeping it. The hallway narrows at the top, the ceiling lower than the floors below, the building itself pressing down toward the room at its peak.
Ward's office occupies the northeast corner, the largest room on the highest floor, with windows on two walls that give him the valley to the west and the pass road to the east. On a clear day the Holden property is visible from these windows, at the far edge of town.
The door is open. Ward sits behind the desk with a cup of coffee in his hand, the morning light catching the silver at his temples. He looks rested, composed, genuinely pleased to see me.
The pleasure is real. That's the part that has always made him dangerous.
He loves me the way you love a tool that fits perfectly in your hand, and the love doesn't diminish when you set the tool down and pick up a different one.
A woman sits in the leather chair to the right of the desk. She looks to be in her late forties, dark hair cut close to the jaw, wearing a charcoal blazer over a cream blouse. She holds a leather portfolio in her lap with the relaxed grip of someone who has been sitting in this chair for more than a few minutes.
Her posture reads Denver. Her shoes say partner-track.
"Callum." Ward gestures to the open chair. "Sit down. I want you to meet someone."
I sit. The woman extends her hand. "Phoebe Tennant. Colburn, Tennant, and Reese."
I take the handshake. Her grip is firm, professional, and calibrated.
Colburn, Tennant, and Reese is a Denver firm I know by reputation: environmental litigation, resource extraction, land use. Boutique enough to be discreet, large enough to be effective.
"Callum Aldrich," I say.
"I know." She gives me a smile that is polished and carries no information. "Ward speaks very highly of you."
"Phoebe has been advising the family on some long-term planning," Ward says, and the blandness oflong-term planningis surgical. "She'll be handling the Holden matter going forward."
Going forward.
I don't react because reacting is what Ward is watching for: the flinch, the tell, the flicker of possessiveness that would confirm what he suspects about my relationship with Greer.
"The Holden matter," I repeat, keeping my voice level. "Meaning the property acquisition."
"Meaning everything connected to the Holden estate." Ward takes a sip of his coffee. "The property, the mining access, the claims review, the outstanding permits. Phoebe's firm has the bandwidth to manage it as a unified matter. It's been piecemeal for too long."
Piecemealmeans me. He is telling me, in the vocabulary we share, that my handling has been fragmented, insufficient, compromised. He is doing it in front of the woman he hired to replace me, with warmth in his voice and coffee in his hand.
"The administrative hold on the permits," I say. "Is that part of the transfer?"
Phoebe opens the portfolio. "I've already spoken with Rick Halston's office. The hold will be reviewed as part of a comprehensive audit of the claim filings. Given the compliance review currently underway, it makes sense to consolidate the legal oversight."
