“It won’t go that high,” Luke said.

“It’s just pasture and a white farmhouse.”

I wanted to believe him.

I stared at the graph and felt the seventy-one thousand dollars in my envelope shrink to nothing.

A heavy door clicked open down the carpeted hall.

Tom Barrett stepped out of his office, smoothed down his striped tie, and waved us back.

Tom shut the door behind us.

We sat in two padded chairs facing his wide mahogany desk.