“The sale closed six weeks ago.”
Daniel looked at Pamela.
Pamela looked at Nia’s burgundy top, leggings, and sneakers.
Her eyes moved slowly over her clothing.
The judgment was so visible that it almost became a sentence of its own.
Nia noticed.
Of course she noticed.
Pamela gave another little laugh.
“Eighteen Hawthorne sold for over two million dollars.”
Daniel visibly winced.
Nia did not.
She simply stared at Pamela.
The meaning hung there.
Pamela had not technically said it.
She had not needed to.
Nia spoke softly.
“And?”
Pamela realized too late how the sentence sounded.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“What did you mean?”
“I meant the transaction would have required—”
“What?”
“Nia.”
The new voice came from behind the gate.
Everyone turned.
A man in a gray polo shirt stood thirty feet away near a white service van.
Nia recognized him immediately.
Marcus Hale, the project manager who had spent the last four months supervising the final phase of her renovation.
He looked from Nia to Daniel’s hand on her wrist.
His expression changed.
“What’s happening?”
Pamela stepped toward the gate.
“Do you know this woman?”
Marcus frowned.
“Yes.”
Nia closed her eyes for one second.
Pamela looked surprised.
Marcus walked closer.
“She owns eighteen Hawthorne.”
Silence.
Daniel released Nia’s wrist.
Immediately.
Nia pulled her arm against her body and rubbed the spot where he had been holding her.
Pamela stared at Marcus.
“You work at the property.”
“I’ve been managing the renovation.”
“And she hired you?”
Marcus looked confused.
“Yes.”
Pamela’s mouth opened.
Then closed.
Daniel looked at Nia.
“Ms. Carter, I—”
Nia held up one hand.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Pamela recovered first.
“Well.”
She cleared her throat.
“If that is true, then obviously there has been some administrative confusion.”
Nia looked at her.
“If?”
Pamela’s face tightened.
“I said there may have been a misunderstanding.”
“You said I didn’t belong here.”
“I was acting on the information available.”
“You refused new information.”
Pamela’s expression hardened again.
“There is no reason to become hostile.”
Nia laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“You ordered security to remove me from my own neighborhood.”
“And now that we have additional verification—”
“You had verification.”
Pamela gestured toward Marcus.
“We have it now.”
Nia looked down at the smart doorbell application open on her phone.
Then she looked through the gate at 18 Hawthorne.
Marcus saw what she was doing.
His eyebrows lifted.
Nia tapped the home control app.
Pamela noticed.