Pete nodded as if I’d handed him a job he wanted nothing to do with.

He turned away and counted bundles under his breath.

Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen.

I walked across the yard with the deed copy folded in my pocket.

The office door caught at the bottom the way it always did.

Ray sat at his desk in a short-sleeved shirt with the phone to his ear, laughing at something.

He waved me in and kept talking.

A blue ledger notebook lay open next to his elbow, its spine worn pale along the edge.