After the call Mark sat with the phone in his hand and felt the astonishing, unwelcome relief of having been told what to do by a person he had not managed. He did not become good in the car. He became, for a moment, possible. In the morning he drove to Pruitt's office in a strip of new brick that faced a highway and asked for ten minutes. Pruitt came out in a polo shirt the color of a golf magazine and smiled until he saw Mark's face.
"The Orchard parcel isn't going to be listed by the family," Mark said. "It isn't ours. It was left to someone else. I shouldn't have taken the option money. I'm returning it. I'll have a cashier's check here tomorrow. If you want to be angry, be angry at me, not at the estate, and not at the woman who owns the house. She didn't know about the paper."
Pruitt's smile thinned into the look of a man recalculating a friendly email. "You represented you had influence."
"I represented more than I had. That's on me. The money comes back. If your lawyer wants a letter that says I misstated my authority, I'll sign a short one. I won't sign anything that drags my mother's will into your deal."