Lathum returned his attention to the tablet and snorted. "I doubt that. Not if you judge by the car and their clothes."
Quint knew he should quell the ire that surged up and pounded in his neck. He barely recognized his cold voice as the retort forced its way out. "Well sir, I don't judge people by the clothes on their backs and the cars they drive."
Lathum glanced up sharply, his expression unreadable. For one horrible long moment he was silent. Finally he shrugged. "Fair enough. So why did you think she was out of your league?"
Quint slowly let out his breath. "Well, for starters, I'd have had to compete with every other guy in school. I graduated two years ahead of her and didn't keep in touch. I'm nothing special. Not like her." It was hard to explain how her beauty was different than so many others, but it was. She could have been a model. The soft curves on that tall slender body and those long legs were the talk of the locker room when he was a senior. She was two years younger then. That wide-eyed innocent look and those full lips reminded him of a fairytale princess. Even the way she wore her hair, with those braids wrapped around the top of her head like a crown and the long shiny blond curls falling around her shoulders and down her back - she wasn't simply beautiful. She was exquisite. Now she had matured into an even more beautiful woman. Her voice was soft and full of music.
Lathum interrupted his thoughts. "But Mertz was good enough for her? Why, because he is the son of a prominent family doctor? Yet he was arrested last week for selling drugs to kids like little Nicholas over there?" His thumb jerked back to acknowledge Nick for the first time. "I thought you didn't judge people by their pocketbooks."
Quint felt the warmth flow into his face. "She didn't know anything about what he was doing."
Lathum dismissed the subject with a shrug. "Any idea where she is tonight?"
"Maybe at home. I heard she was pretty humiliated when she found out."
"Well, she's got something to take her mind off it now." His voice was terse. "What's she like? Will she get hysterical when you tell her?"
"Me?" The idea of talking to her again was unsettling enough, but to tell her something like this? "I don't know her that well."