Morales’s pen stopped moving across the page.

“He’s moving fast to block your promotion to major,” she said.

Dalton lowered his reading glasses and looked at me over the top of the frames.

“We have to make sure the county clerk’s filing system matches our physical deed before we file for the injunction,” Dalton said.

He rapped his knuckles on the thick cardboard.

The sound was flat and dry in the hushed room.

He picked up a blue cardboard folder marked Title Abstract and walked out of the reference room.