Page 2 of Her Property

And instead of firing or suspending her, he’d sent her here, to Ruby Lake, to ‘get herself sorted.’

“No work,” he said, when he dropped her off. He’d made her leave her laptop and phone at home to be sure. “For once in your life Catherine, try to rest.”

Alfred said he’d be back in two weeks. By then, they’d have cleaned up the mess she made with the trial, and maybe, if she could show she was in a better headspace, she could even get back on board.

It wasn’t like she was a prisoner here. Quite the opposite—there was a car so she could tour the county or get provisions; a landline, a TV and DVD player, and shelves crammed with books. There were walking trails and there was even a canoe in the shed.

But nothing could distract Cat Jones from herself. So long as she was alone up here, going over everything ad nauseam in her head, she’d never be able to truly relax.

* * *

Cat tossedthe textbook on the floor of the deck where it landed with a dull thud on a pile of her other abandoned activities: fully completed Sudoku and crossword puzzles, and the third paperback she’d been through in as many days. Cat had grabbed the textbook in desperation, as if reading about the law would scratch the part of her brain yearning to be back at work practicing it.

It wasn’t working.

Standing up, Cat pulled her cardigan tight around her. The weather was unseasonably warm for November, but there was still a chill in the air. She gripped the back of the lounge chair, wanting badly to toss it over the railing into Ruby Lake. Instead, she looked out onto the lake for the hundredth time. More specifically, she looked out onto the mysterious neighbor’s property up shore.

The property next door was contained on a peninsula that stuck out into Ruby Lake a mile up shore to the east. The land sloped up to a rocky ridge, around which curved the end of the very road this lake house sat on. Alfred had said there was an old summer camp there, the remnants of which were visible from where Cat stood now. A smattering of mossy rooftops dotted the edge of a grassy clearing, a sprawling mess hall edged the road, and a wide dock protruded into the lake off the thin curve of beachfront. Further up the road she could just make out another, better-kept roof—the neighbor’s cabin itself, nestled in the trees.

“You let me know if you see him over there,” Alfred had said on the drive up. “Especially if you hear any working sounds.”

Cat had given Alfred a sidelong glance, glad in that moment for a small fraction of the three-and-a-half-hour drive from the city to be talking about something other than her andthe incident.

“What do you mean,workingsounds?”

“Hammering. Saws. That type of thing.”

Alfred talked about tools like they were some kind of dangerous foreign objects. She would have laughed if she wasn’t still upset.

“What’s wrong with working?”

Alfred had scowled, gripping the steering wheel. “For you, it’s not knowing when to take a break. But forhim…”

He’d muttered something about the absurdity of the neighbor. But Cat was stuck on the intensity with which Alfred had said the wordhim.Alfred had taken down some powerful people in court over many years—she’d seen it herself. But he never made it personal. Hearing Alfred sound like he actually despised someone meant they must have really done a number on him.

“I’ve got a stop-work order on that place,” he said. “If Colson so much as lifts a hammer, it’s over.”

He was suing the neighbor over a property line dispute, he said. He went on further, but Cat had tuned him out. She’d been vaguely curious about what had happened between them, but on that drive, she was still reeling.

Now she wished she had listened better. At least a sordid backstory might allow for some entertainment. Leaning out over the railing, Cat strained her ear for any sign of life, but all she heard in the distance was a soft bleating from the hobby farm on the other side of the property. Maybe that’s what she should do tomorrow—go visit the alpacas on the farm. Maybe they’d carry on a better conversation than she was currently having with herself.

Cat sighed. She was losing her damned mind.

Like she had in the courtroom four days ago.

“Maybe you could try meditation?” her friend and colleague Laura had suggested over the phone yesterday. There was a landline at the lake house, Cat’s only connection to her life at home. Cat knew how busy Laura was—she had taken over the trial Cat had left behind. But she was getting desperate.

“Meditation. Are you serious?” Cat said. One of her fleeting ex-boyfriends had suggested she try that once. He could barely keep up with her as it was, and after that she’d let him drift away like all the others.

But this time, although Cat rolled her eyes, she filed it away as amaybe. Laura was one of the few people Cat would take advice from besides Alfred, and maybe her siblings back home, though she didn’t talk to them much these days. Laura was Cat’s oldest friend—they’d been best friends since high school and had followed the same path since graduation. They’d even ended up at the same Manhattan litigation firm, though it hadn’t been an accident. Alfred had scouted Cat out of school, and she said she would only go if Laura came along with her.

Laura was also the only one who knew what happened to Cat when she slowed down.

“Mediation, yes. Meditation, no,” Cat had said.

Her bad lawyer joke got her an exceptionally emphatic groan from Laura. “Come on, Cat. I’m serious. Chase swears by it.”

Chase. Of course, Laura’s perfect boyfriend—the epitome of chill—wouldbe a meditator.

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