Overkill(5)
“Mr. Bridger, my name is Kate Lennon.”
She handed him a business card. He took it from her but didn’t bother to look at it before slipping it into the pocket of his flannel shirt. He also ignored the right hand she extended for him to shake.
“When are you people going to give up?” He gestured broadly at the vista. “Why would I want to leave this?”
She pulled her hand back and took in the panorama, spending several seconds on the waterfall alone before coming back to him. “I can’t imagine that you would. It’s breathtaking.”
“Right. More importantly, it’s mine, and it will stay mine till the day I die. Got that?”
If her recoil was any indication, she had. Good. Point made.
But her reaction also made him feel like he’d slapped a fairy. The pixie haircut, heart-shaped face, and all. And the constant whoosh of the waterfall was no excuse for his raised voice. Not entirely anyway. “Look, I don’t want to be rude, but—”
“But you are. Being rude, that is.” She plucked a sealed gray envelope from her oversize shoulder bag. “Personally, I take no offense, but, under the circumstances, your rudeness is grossly misplaced.”
She pushed the envelope at him with the snapping precision of a Pro Bowl center. He caught it against his chest to prevent a fumble.
She said, “The envelope contains several documents, but of particular importance is—”
“I’ve seen them.”
“Yes, but it’s been a while.”
“I’ve got a good memory.”
“Excellent. It will serve—”
He ripped the envelope in two, documents and all, and dropped the halves to the ground.
Slowly she lowered her head and looked down at them, and then with the same lack of haste raised her head and met his unyielding gaze with her own.
And he’d thought the sky was crystal clear blue.
She said, “Tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”
He shifted his feet into a wider, more assertive stance, which was wasted because she’d already turned her back on him. “Tomorrow at ten, what?”
“We’ll meet. The location is handwritten on the back of my business card. Room two-oh-three.”
“Don’t hold your breath.”
He wanted to add one more line, something with a bit more of a sting, but he was distracted by her calf muscles, which were well defined and strong enough to keep her balanced as she covered the distance back to her SUV on tiptoe.
And he looked at her butt. PC or no PC, he still had a pair, and they worked.
He waited until she’d made a sharp U-turn and headed out of his cul-de-sac before picking up the halves of the envelope and taking them with him as he returned to the house.
Curiosity kept him from immediately trashing them. Instead, he tossed them onto the kitchen island, poured himself a refill of coffee, and sat down on the counter stool he always sat in. No one except Bing had ever sat in any of the other three.
He took a sip of his fresh coffee, then pulled the contents from the two pieces of the envelope. The official-looking pages had been stapled together, but the cover letter was separate. He lined up the two ripped edges of it. Without first reading the text, he glanced down at the signature. Kate Lennon had been signed in black ink below a typed Sincerely, Kathryn Cartwright Lennon.
“Well, Kate Lennon, what terms are you hawking?”
That’s when he noticed the letterhead.
The courthouse in the city square was old-school and imposing for a mostly rural, sparsely populated county in western North Carolina in the shadow of the Blue Ridge. The edifice was constructed of red brick and had four white columns supporting a pediment above the entrance.
However, that wasn’t where Kathryn Lennon had instructed him to meet with her. The address she’d handwritten was directly across the street from the courthouse. It was as ugly a building as Zach had ever seen.
Its two floors seemed to have been squashed to fit between its flat roof and the sidewalk. There was no facade to speak of, only a row of windows extending from either side of a glass door with gold letters designating it as the Office of the District Attorney.
Inside, it smelled like all old government buildings: musty, metallic, and moldy. Zach took the stairs two at a time. The long hallway leading off the landing was floored with worn carpet that silenced his footfalls as he approached room 203. The door stood ajar. He rolled his shoulders, popped his neck, and knocked.
“Come in.”
He pushed open the door but remained on the threshold. The office was small and as unattractive as the rest of the building, but it smelled better. A fragrance candle flickered on the windowsill behind the desk setup.
Kate Lennon turned away from the computer on the ell and swiveled her chair around to face the main desk. And him.
She looked much the same as she had yesterday. Short, platinum hair that was feathered on the crown of her head, smooth by the time it reached her cheeks. Small stud earrings. A no-nonsense watch on her left wrist, one slender bracelet on her right. Tailored suit jacket, navy blue, near military in cut, with a double row of brass buttons marching down the front.
He couldn’t see below the level of her desk, but he’d bet the bottom half of her suit hugged like yesterday’s pencil skirt, and that she’d be wearing another pair of high heels that made a statement as bold as the grille on her SUV.