There was a perceptible shift in the quality of the silence on Cora's end of the line - subtle, but Sandra knew her well enough to recognize it.
"A contract?" Cora repeated, and her voice had taken on a new quality now - measured but genuinely curious, the way her voice always got when something had caught her real attention rather than just her polite attention. "You're calling me about a contract? That's what this is?"
She seemed to be thinking out loud as she continued.
