Category:

Tom was a gregarious, friendly man who liked to help people and accepted a broad array of legal matters, even those that had to do with areas of the law in which he had little or no experience. One of his mantras was "Don't turn a case away too quickly. You never know where a million dollars might be hiding!"

Ryan didn't know Tom very well before joining the firm. They'd rarely talked at the biennial reunions of the extended Clark family in Fayetteville. Tom and Ryan's father were close in age, but the families never socialized or spent time together while growing up. Tom and his wife, Karen, had no children. Ryan was thirteen years old when Sam Clark, his father, died suddenly in a drowning accident. Tom attended the funeral and made a point to pull Ryan aside and offer to help in any way possible. Tom followed up his words with a condolence card repeating the same message. Ryan called in the favor fifteen years later and drove to Cranfield for a job interview, even though he doubted the offer remained valid.

Ryan was the third associate hired by Tom in the past eight years. All the others had either been fired or moved on. Ryan knew the employment history of previous attorneys when he accepted the job offer, but his own career had reached the point of no viable options. At the moment, he was deep in the labyrinth of the secured transaction provisions from the North Carolina version of the Uniform Commercial Code. It was a topic he'd not thought about since passing the bar exam three years earlier. He rubbed his eyes and ran his muscular fingers through his short, sandy hair. A knock sounded on his door.

"Come in!" he called out.

"Ready for a lunch break?" Tom asked, patting his ample stomach.

"No, I brought an apple from home and plan on working straight through on the UCC question. I know you need a memo before the end of the day."

"I wasn't serious about that deadline," Tom replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Tomorrow will be soon enough. There's someone I want you to meet."

Ryan had learned to pin down the senior partner when a deadline was involved.

"What time tomorrow?" he asked.

"Ten thirty," Tom replied. "I have an eleven o'clock meeting with the client. Thirty minutes will be plenty of time to review your research."

"That will work," Ryan said, getting up from his chair.

At five feet ten, Ryan was the same height as his cousin but without the extra weight around the middle. A varsity tennis player in college, Ryan was a defensive specialist who won a lot of matches by frustrating and wearing down more aggressive opponents. Tenacity in the face of adversity had been one of his strengths, but his sketchy employment history since law school had worn him down. For the past few months he'd occasionally struggled with anxiety attacks.

"An apple isn't a meal," Tom said, putting his arm around Ryan's shoulder. "You're doing a fantastic job and deserve a nice luncheon."

Ryan hoped the compliment was genuine. The majority of his interactions with his new boss had been positive, but there had been a handful of negative outbursts.

The town of Cranfield was the county seat of Blanton County. The community of twelve thousand people was only a ninety-minute drive east of the city limits of Charlotte, but the difference in culture and pace of life was as stark as if the two locations were a thousand miles apart. The main economic engine for Blanton County remained agriculture. For decades tobacco was king, but soybeans were now more common, and chicken houses had increased in popularity.

Ryan and Tom walked down a short hall decorated with photos Tom had taken of pastoral scenes in Blanton County. The lawyer especially liked old tobacco barns with faded wooden sides. The law firm occupied a two-story 1940s-era house that had been converted to office space twenty years earlier. Tom owned the building. The extensive renovations had included hardwood floors, crown molding, and expensive furnishings. An oriental rug covered the reception-area floor. The seats and couch were soft leather. Outside, the yard had been meticulously landscaped and featured a parking area with brick pavers.

"Nancy, we'll be having lunch at the club and won't be back for a couple of hours," Tom said.

Nancy Coltran, a smartly dressed gray-haired woman in her late fifties, was a personal friend of Tom and his wife and served as receptionist and bookkeeper.

"Don't forget you have an appointment at one o'clock with Sean Patterson," Nancy said.

"Reschedule it for later in the week," Tom said. "He's wanting an update when there's really nothing to tell him."

As they proceeded out the door, Tom turned to Ryan. "Remind me to give you the Patterson file when we get back to the office. It needs a fresh set of eyes before I take any more depositions. Our client wasn't candid about the facts when he hired me, and I need to figure out the best exit strategy for him and the law firm."