The Rules of the Red - 2nd Edition |✓|

Chapter Two, Part Three - Welcome To Harbor Village

A few hours later I joined Mrs. Trentley in the foyer, where she waited with my jacket and keys to the Camaro from the garage.

"Seeing as how this will be your first time driving through Harbor on your own, you aren't going to get yourself into any trouble, are you?"

"No, Mrs. Trentley." I sighed. "I'm just gonna do a little shopping."

"Hmph. Well, have you found anything? In your reports?"

"No, not yet." I shrugged into my jacket. "But give me a little more time and I know I'll find something."

She sniffed and opened the door. "If there's anything to find."

"Mrs. T, since I was a kid, I've always been really good at reading people. And I also happen to have a pretty good sense of intuition. And that's not me tooting my own horn - it's just the truth."

"What is it you're trying to say, Naomi?"

"What I'm trying to say, Mrs. T, is that I ignored my gut once - the one and only time - and because of that something incredibly bad happened. And for over a year I've had my instincts screaming to me about my father's death.I'm telling you, somebody planted roses all over this story, yet somehow it still manages to stink like -"

"I understand, but there just isn't enough evidence to support your theory, Naomi."

"Yeah, well, I hope I'm wrong too. Keep dinner hot for me, would you?"

I stepped outside and cut across the lawn. I entered the gate's passcode, slipped through after it unlocked, and then headed to the perfectly waxed Camaro already parked at the curb. As I unlocked the door, a sleek, black limousine pulled smoothly to the curb behind my vehicle.

A passenger door opened, and a tall, thin man stepped out. He had bad skin, a crooked nose, and long, thinning hair slicked back from his face. The expensive cut of his suit said the guy was rolling in dough, and his snobbish grin also told me he was a man to watch out for.

"Miss Noble? Naomi Noble?" And yet another unpleasant characteristic about him - his voice came out in a horribly nasal tone.

"That depends. Who's asking?"

"Jeremy Franks of Proctor and Sool. I'm Paris Noble's lawyer."

With narrowed eyes, I scrutinized the tinted black windows of the limousine, suddenly quite sure that my mother watched us from within. "Really? Hmm. I guess I just assumed that since you weren't able to help my mother seal the deal on her husband's will a year ago, that she would've moved on to a more competent lawyer by now. You know - one that specializes in actually winning cases."

The grin slid from his conniving face-I'd found his sore spot on the very first try. He was the same lawyer that had tied up the legal process behind my father's will. Which also meant that Franks was at least partially, if not mostly, responsible for the fact that I hadn't been able to attend my father's funeral.