Chapter 6
The next morning, I freshened up using the only tiny mirror in the room.
I pulled my hair into a tight ponytail. My face was still pale, and the emptiness and despair from the day before were gone.
The woman in the mirror stared back with eyes cold as steel, like a blade fresh from the forge.
I checked out, bought a two-dollar breakfast sandwich from a cart, and ate it on the way to Heritage Avenue.
Heritage Avenue was an old street, a world apart from the luxury malls I used to haunt.
The street was lined with battered old buildings, and the air held the smell of breakfast grills and the grit of the old part of town.
I found number 47.
Integrity Law Offices.
The sign was tiny and easy to miss, and the glass door was dusty, too.
I pushed the door open and stepped inside.
The place was cramped and stacked waist-high with files. A woman in reading glasses was sorting through them. She looked up. "Who are you here for?"
"I'm looking for Kyle Carter," I said.
"He's in the back. Wait here," she replied.
She called toward the back room. "Kyle, someone's here for you."
The door to the back opened, and a man about fifty stepped out.
He was short and a little heavy, in a white shirt that had seen better days, with messy hair and sharp eyes.
He looked me over, and the look went through me like a scalpel.
"You're Sophia Quinn?" he asked, his voice gravelly.
"Yes," I replied.
"Come with me," he said.
He turned and headed into the back, and I trailed after him.
His office was worse than the front room, with files on the shelves, the floor, and the desk.
He pointed to the only chair in front of his desk. "Sit."
Then he sat down behind the desk, fished out a cigarette from the mess, stuck it between his fingers, but didn't light it.
"Richard Quinn's daughter," he said, and his tone stayed flat. "Your father has been gone almost ten years. I thought you'd never come."
"I didn't need you before," I said, locking eyes with him.
He laughed, a little sarcastic.
"Right. You were Mrs. Sinclair, and you lived like a queen. Why would you need an old man who cleans up other people's messes?"
He clearly knew what had happened to me.
"Your father told me back then," Kyle Carter said, tapping the cigarette on the desk. "He said his daughter took after her mother. Trusting, soft, easy for a man to fool. He was afraid nobody would look out for you once he was gone.
"He had me set up a trust for you, and you couldn't touch the money whenever you felt like it. The one condition was that I could only hand you the key after you had been hurt down to nothing."
He put the cigarette down, leaned forward, and stared at me.
He said, "So, tell me. Are you there yet?"
I looked at him without crying and without complaining.
I just laid it out, calm as ever.
"My husband, James Sinclair, and his mistress spent three years moving every asset we had out of reach.
"Yesterday he froze my cards, took back the house and the car, and handed me a divorce agreement worth 300 thousand dollars and told me to leave with nothing.
"I went to my mother. She was so upset she ended up in the hospital, and the first thing she said when she woke up was that I should go apologize to him.
"My best friend told me to just suck it up for the cash.
"Right now I have less than thirty dollars in cash."
When I finished, the silence was suffocating.
Kyle looked at me, and the sarcasm in his eyes faded into something harder to name.
He was quiet for a long time before finally asking, "So, what do you want?"
"I'm taking back everything that belongs to me."
"Just taking it back?" he pressed.
I looked at him, and every word came out cold.
"No.
"I want him ruined.
"I want him on his knees in front of me, and I want him to feel everything he did to me, twice over.
"I want him and that woman to fall from their pedestal and hit the ground so hard they'll never get up again."
When I finished, Kyle just kept his eyes locked on mine.
After a long pause, he finally broke into a smile.
That smile carried respect and something like relief, as though he had been waiting a long time for it.
"You really are. Not like your mother at all. You're your father's daughter," he said under his breath.
He opened a drawer, pulled out a key and a thick folder, and pushed them toward me.
"Your dad left you more than just money," he said.
"He started from nothing, and he helped a lot of people and made a lot of enemies. In here you'll find leverage on some of them and proof that others owe him.
"This key opens a safe deposit box at Crestmont Bank. What's in it is enough to put you back on your feet."
"But," he said, and his tone changed, "Sophia, I have to warn you. Once you start down this road there's no turning back.
"You'll be facing business fights dirtier than anything you can picture, and people who are worse.
"James Sinclair didn't get where he is by being stupid. He's a wolf that eats people."
"I know," I said, picking up the folder, feeling its weight in my hands. "I don't care."
Kyle nodded, took a paper cup off the desk, and poured me some water.
"Have some water, Ms. Quinn," he said.
He had changed what he called me.
"What's our first target?" I asked.
Kyle leaned back in his chair and tapped a steady rhythm on the desk.
"James Sinclair's company, Horizon Group, is bidding on that parcel south of the city next month. It's the last piece he needs before the IPO. He's been preparing for a long time, and the books can't be clean."
A cold smile curled at his lips.
"That's where we'll make our first move."