Brandon swallowed hard and gave one nod.

“Are you going to press formal fraud charges over the quitclaim draft I handed Arthur at the county desk?” he asked.

“Arthur logged the title discrepancy as an administrative filing mistake,” I said.

“Margaret closed the inquiry file yesterday morning.

There won’t be any criminal charges.”

Brandon laid his hands flat on his knees and looked out the balcony window toward the dark line of the sea.

“Can we ever fix this?” he asked quietly.