What a jerk his brother had been! On the other hand, as Joe understood it, his brother had been doing a favor for Aaron Berglund, Margot’s husband, giving her that lease. He had thought Margot just wanted to play at owning a business, that she would get bored or do something terminally stupid and fold up in six months or a year. Ha! That had been nearly thirteen years ago. He shoved the photocopy back in the drawer and locked it.

Interesting that Betsy Devonshire not only used the right terminology, she was right about the lease not forbidding assignment. Was she brighter than she looked? Or did someone tell her about it?

Wait a second, he hadn’t noticed that Margot was arranging to be incorporated! And he kept close check on all his tenants, especially Margot, the fly in his ointment, the bug on his birthday cake.

Margot had been a “d/b/a”—doing business as—back when she started Crewel World, but she’d never incorporated. Never needed to. Never hinted she was thinking about it. He began doodling again, drawing a big threaded needle and then putting a circle with a slash around it. But he added a question mark. Margot was smart enough not to talk about her business to people who didn’t need to know. If she had incorporated, it was very recently. And wherever she was, she was laughing up a storm, because he was screwed once again. Dammit, he needed to know!

He reached for his phone, dialed. But Penberthy was still tied up with a client, said his secretary, and could not be interrupted. Mickels left an urgent message and slammed the phone down. Stupid secretary, wouldn’t listen when he said he had one question that wouldn’t take more than ten seconds!

He settled back to wait, but in a minute he was up and pacing the perimeter of his office, which after four trips put him in mind of a hamster in a cage. He started to reach for the phone to call Penberthy’s secretary back and shout at her—but instead did the one thing guaranteed to cool his temper.

He told his own secretary he didn’t want to be interrupted for half an hour (she wouldn’t let anyone through even for ten seconds, either), locked the door to his office, and went into his strong room. He opened his safe and took out a chipped green metal chest about eighteen inches square, heavy by the way he handled it. He brought it to a small table in the strong room and unlocked its padlock with a key on a ring that was never out of his reach.