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I didn’t necessarily blame her for her suspicions. I thought I had been more careful, more successful with my covert operations. Apparently, she had just been watching and noting each time I was gone, each time I had a call, and waiting to say something about it. Of course she had to do it today. If she had just listened, it would have all been explained.
Maybe it was better this way, though. This way there would be no doubt because it wouldn’t be coming from me. It would be coming from someone she would have to trust, if nothing other than because we were in their office, and they could show her the paperwork.
I pulled in and parked in one of the empty spaces. I knew she would be there if I made it early enough, since she was supposed to be waiting on us after we saw the place and I told Allison anyway.
As we got inside, Allison shuffled behind me, holding Leo and looking around. The bottom floor was mostly empty offices, save one for a dentist that stayed pretty busy on weekdays. There were a few cars out front for that now, and the glass door for his section of the building was frosted over, but shadows behind it showed there were people in there.
At one end was an office for a lumber company that I had never seen anyone at, despite coming here several times in the last few weeks. The other end was the law office, and we headed in that direction.
“Smith and Slater Law?” Allison muttered as she reached the door. “Why are we at a lawyer’s office?”
“You’ll see,” I said as I knocked on the door.
“Come in,” came the pleasant, sing-songy voice of the woman inside.
I turned the knob and opened the door, waiting for a moment for Allison to go ahead. When she didn’t, I took the step inside and then held the door behind me for her. She stayed a step or two behind me as she tried to make sense of where we were when we walked into the office. Her eyes floated up to see the pretty girl at the desk, who stood and crossed the office over to us. She held out her hand for Allison to shake as I introduced her.
“Allison, this is Carmella Smith. She handles family and civil law here in Murdock and the surrounding area,” I said.
“Surrounding area?” Carmella laughed. “Essentially about five hundred miles in a circle. Hi, Allison, it’s nice to finally meet you.”
“Hi,” Allison said, her voice wavering and unsure. She took Carmella’s hand and shook it gently, like she was in a dream. Her eyes kept darting between Carmella and me.
“Carmella handles real estate transactions around Murdock as well,” I said.
“I do, especially ones where the sale is less straightforward,” she said. “Family disputes, that sort of thing.”
“And she also just so happens to be Caden’s sister,” I added.
“What?” Allison asked, clearly trying to catch up. She shut her eyes tightly and then opened them again, focusing hard on mine. I grinned.
“Caden is my brother,” Carmella said. “It’s how I know Ryan. We go way back.”
“She’s the person I’ve been talking to and seeing so much recently,” I said, then realized how that might sound. “Because we were figuring out the sale.”
She looked confused, maybe a little apprehensive as she stood in the doorway of the office.
“What sale?” she asked.
“Why don’t you come in?” Carmella asked. “Take a seat over here.”
I helped guide Allison over to the chairs near the desk with one hand on the small of her back and sat beside her. Leo was happily asleep in her arms, and she absently patted him on the rear and bounced him as she watched Carmella go to a large metal file cabinet and open it up. She began to pull out the paperwork that we had been working on and laid it down in stacks on the table in front of Allison.
Allison looked like she was trying to piece it all together, like she’d thought something completely different was about to happen and now was blindsided and trying to catch up. Then, when it seemed to dawn on her what was going on, there was a look of distrust, like she couldn’t really let herself believe what was happening. She looked at me for a moment and then down at one of the papers. I glanced at it and saw the address on the top of the page. She had seen it too. I smiled. This was everything I had been waiting on.
I reached over and took her free hand and she turned slowly to look at me. Her eyebrows were scrunched in the middle, and I could see tears in the corners of her eyes again. Only this time they weren’t tears of sadness. These were the tears of someone who had a deep distrust of good luck and had recently thought she had run out of it. I knew that look. I had seen it in the mirror every morning for a long time after I got back from the desert.
