Chapter 5

The letter didn't come to me. It came to Ruth. Because Ashford lawyers can bury a thirty-year-old ex-wife with no assets. They cannot bury Ruth Okafor, who sits on the federal resilience review panel that scores every Gulf rebuild bid — including the two-billion-dollar one Ashford Development had staked its year on. Ruth slit the envelope with her thumbnail, read it in four seconds, and smiled like someone had handed her a level. "Cute. They finally learned paperwork can kill, so they're...