I picked the thick white envelope up off the table.

I didn’t open it, and I didn’t hide it.

I dropped the envelope of cash right into my father’s lap, got up from the little wooden table, and walked out of the coffee shop into the afternoon heat.

Twenty minutes later the tires of my LeSabre were whining over the steel expansion joints of the Pontiac bridge.

Summer heat was rising off the pavement, making the brick buildings along Telegraph Road shimmer through the windshield.

The sign on the frosted glass door on the second floor said Legal Aid of Oakland County.