Chapter 9: Count It

The lobby of Hargrove Homes had a fountain and a wall of model houses under glass.

Forty people stood drinking coffee at nine o'clock on a Monday.

I walked through the front doors in a black blazer, with the gray folder under one arm.

Shane came in a step behind me.

The receptionist looked up, saw my face and picked up her phone.

"I'm here to see Dalton's father," I said. "I'd like to do it down here, please."

"I'm not sure he..."

"Tell him I'm returning something."

Heads were already turning at the coffee station.

Somebody near the elevators whispered my name and somebody else shushed her, and then everyone stopped pretending.

Dalton's father came out of the elevator a minute later in a charcoal suit.

He crossed the lobby slowly, and the staff parted for him.

"Ms. Penland," he said. "I'd hoped you would send your answer by mail."

"I wanted you to have it in person."

I opened the folder and took out the little velvet box.

I held it up where the people at the coffee station could see.

"This is the engagement ring your son gave me two years ago," I said. "I'm returning it."

I put it in his hand.

His fingers closed over it, very slightly relieved.

"Thank you," he said. "And the release?"

I took the second document out of the folder.

It was the lawyer's letter, with the release stapled behind it.

I tore it in half, and then in quarters, and let the pieces fall onto the stone floor beside the fountain.

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