“Don’t call Brandon tonight.

Let him hear the quiet.”

At six that evening I was in my study.

The envelope had come by courier at five forty, heavy cream paper with a Savannah postmark.

The letterhead belonged to a firm on Bay Street.

The attorney had signed it in blue ink.

He wrote that any public statement about the wedding, the hotel, or the timber supply agreement would be met with a lawsuit for slander and tortious interference.

The phrase contractual remedies appeared four times.