Chapter 21 · The Twin Anchor

The deed hit the varnish like a bad bet.

"Thumb and pen, Mrs. Voss. Right by the gold wax."

Robert Ashcombe tapped the page with a trimmed fingernail. The seal was thick as a half-dollar, pressed with a rising sun, and the print underneath it was small enough to give a person a headache.

*Master Takeover and Quitclaim — Berth Four and Appurtenant Waters.*

My bad knee twitched. Three weeks off my father's marble floors and the joint still remembered the drop.

"Where's the rest?" I said.

"That's the instrument."

"Then it's worthless." I kept both hands flat in my lap. "A quitclaim needs a legal schedule. Metes. Bounds. Leasehold term. Whatever your board means by appurtenant water. The Commonwealth has a different word for that. Usually fraud."

"Your father warned me you'd drag your feet."

"My father talks with meat in his mouth. What else did he say?"

Ashcombe didn't flinch. He had the clean, buttered smile of a man who'd never had his teeth knocked loose by somebody with dirty hands.