Page 86 of Space Oddities

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Mitchell& Watkins LLP is located in the heart of Atlanta on Peachtree Street. By three in the afternoon, clouds have moved in, and the hottest part of the day is finally past, but in my three-piece suit it still feels ten degrees hotter than it is.

Even in my rush to Atlanta, I still took the time to pick out my nicest suit. I’m playing the role of dutiful son of a senator, after all.

“Mr. Mitchell will be right with you, Mr. Kincaid.” The secretary, an attractive woman in a skirt suit, gestures to a plush armchair along the wall, where a waiting area is arranged like something out of an interior design magazine.

“Thank you.”

“Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“Yes, please.” I sit, crossing an ankle on my thigh. “Black.” The only thing keeping me going since Trish left is caffeine. And like my car, I’m running on fumes at this point.

She scurries off, presumably to get my coffee, but before she can return, a man of average height, medium brown hair, and relative fitness comes through an office door.

“Mr. Kincaid?” His hand reaches out before he gets to me. “I’m Chad Mitchell.”

I rise and shake his hand, unable to help myself from comparing the two of us. At one point, Trish did love the guy, after all.

“Good to meet you.” I shake his hand firmly, irrationally annoyed when he does the same. “Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

Letting go, he waves away my thanks. “Not at all, not at all.”

He gestures to the door he came out of and lets me walk ahead into his cushy corner office. The tall ceilings, city view, and expensive furnishings are a far cry from the mobile home park in Norcross that I visited after my meeting with Ranos.

I’m sure the exact trailer that Trish lived in isn’t there anymore, but I felt closer to her just driving down the cracked asphalt, as though I’d found another piece of the puzzle. I watched two kids playing soccer on the blacktop and wondered what her childhood there had looked like.

Afterward I made the thirty-minute drive north to Alpharetta, where the Mitchells live. Large estates with southern mansions, complete with wide, white columns, lined the roads of the one-percent town just north of Atlanta. They’re more similar to my own home than the trailers in Norcross, and I wonder if Trish made the same comparison when I blackmailed her into moving in with me back in Houston.

Is that why she wanted to live in her trailer in the garage instead of in my house? Was she worried about getting too close to yet another silver-spooned kid?

“I have to say, I was surprised when I heard you had called, Mr. Kincaid,” Mitchell says, making me blink away from light pouring in through his floor-to-ceiling windows. He rounds his large, heavy desk, waving me to sit in one of the two smaller chairs in front. “Obviously, anyone who watches the news knows who your father is, but I didn’t think us folks here in Georgia would get the pleasure of Senator Kincaid’s business.” His southern accent gets heavier the more he talks.

I sit, ignoring the mention of my father and the blatant large-chair-small-chair power move. “I understand you recently lost your father.” I slide my phone out from my inside jacket pocket. “Sorry for your loss.”

This time Mitchell nods, and his noncommittal attitude in regarding his father mirrors my own. “Yes, the stroke was quite a shock.”

Sliding my phone open, I send the email I’d prepared earlier. “I’m sure that wasn’t the only shock.”

“What do you mean?”

Replacing the phone, I lean back, crossing my legs. “Check your email.”

Frowning, Mitchell turns toward his screen and moves his mouse. I can tell the exact moment he opens the pictures attached to the email I just sent.

The ones Ranos had ready for me this morning.

“These are pictures of my wife and me at my father’s funeral.” He clicks his mouse a few more times. Frowning harder, he turns to me. “I don’t understand.”

“What if I mentioned the name Patricia LaRue?”

He goes so still I wonder if he’s breathing.

I nod at his computer. “Funny how your wife is wearing your late mother’s favorite ring at the funeral, considering your father reported it stolen years earlier.”

Mitchell swallows.

“In fact, after Judge Mitchell accused Patricia LaRue of stealing it, he received sixty thousand dollars from the insurance company.”

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