“I counted it three times on the dresser,” I said.

“Where’s Nate this morning?” she asked, stacking her ledger sheets.

“He’s waiting for me on the courthouse steps,” I said.

The courthouse steps were cold stone under our shoes at five minutes to ten.

Twenty people were gathered around the big oak double doors at the top of the stairs, their coats zipped up high against the wind blowing across the square.

A landlord in a quilted blue vest sat on a metal folding stool near the archway, holding an official clipboard and checking off parcel numbers.