They expected me to take the basket as an olive branch instead of a pretty wrapping around a corporate takeover.

I looked down at Melissa’s smooth handwriting for the last time.

I opened the low wooden cabinet beneath the sink, bent down and dropped the glossy card into the wastebasket beside the kitchen sink.

Margaret laid a thick yellow legal file on the conference desk.

She tapped her silver pen twice on her legal pad before she looked up at me.

“This came straight from the county registry at seven thirty this morning,” she said.