My Father Brought a Locksmith to Sell the Ranch I Bought
“I brought what I could pull from the state database,” Rachel said. “But the real answers are not online, Olivia. The county records office is where the physical filings are kept, and that is where we need to start.”
“What are we looking for?” I asked.
“A discrepancy,” she said, clicking her tongue. “Arthur is a proud man, but pride does not make a man drive sixty miles in a blizzard to stare at a fence line. He is trying to cover something.”
We drove out of town, the highway a narrow ribbon of gray asphalt between high banks of plowed snow.
The kitchen was cold when we walked in, the small wood stove in the corner having burned down to gray ash while I was gone. The smell of old pine soot hung in the air.
I set the copper kettle on the propane burner, the match scraping loud in the quiet room. Rachel sat at the pine table, her briefcase already open. She did not take off her wool coat, only unbuttoning the top two buttons to reveal her crisp blue collar.
