The Deposition Found My Warning Behind The Investor Warranty

The subpoena listed a date, a room, and fourteen kinds of records.

It did not ask whether I felt betrayed.

That helped.

Pilar and I sorted what I had: the easement deed, the license, board approvals, invoices, delivery receipts, and field logs. We made an index. Originals stayed in clear sleeves.

"If you don't know, say so," she told me. "If you need a page, ask for it."

She had me check the copies against the originals while her assistant read the dates. One receipt had a faded corner. We paired it with the carrier's delivery record instead of asking anyone to trust a blur. I put the stones in my pocket before we left. This room would need paper.

"I can do that."

"You can also stop answering after the question is answered."

That took more practice.

At my deposition, Stuart's lawyer asked whether I had planned to profit from the sale.

"Gate Bench expected the contract price for its rights."

"One point six million dollars for rights you bought for eighty-four thousand?"

"Eight years earlier. Before the campus expansion. The board hired an appraiser before approving the price."

"You were an employee."

"Yes."

"A maintenance employee."

"A geothermal systems operator."

Pilar set the job description beside the appraisal. The lawyer moved on.

He asked whether shutting the heat field could damage the servers.

"The existing chillers cooled the servers," I said. "The new heat field had not entered customer service."

"You intended pressure."

"I intended to enforce the license after nonpayment."

He read an email where I had written, "I cannot keep carrying this."

Then Pilar asked him to read the sentence before it.

"Gate Bench has paid its legal and land-related costs while your approved fee remains overdue."

He read it without looking at me.

The court reporter asked him to slow down. He started the sentence again, and this time every word about the overdue fee made it into the record.

My deposition lasted five hours. When I stepped outside, the Truckee River looked flat and gray under the bridge. I ate a cold sandwich on a bench and let both stones sit in the sun.

Two days later, I attended Stuart's deposition.

He arrived with the same smile he had worn at closing. He called the whole dispute a failure of communication.

The investors' lawyer, Nora Ellis, put the May test report on the screen.

"Did you see this before the note offering?"

"I saw many technical papers."

She enlarged my block-letter warning.

"Did you understand these words?"

"They reflect an operator's caution."

"Did you understand them?"

"Yes."

Then she showed an email produced from the company's retained archive. It came from Stuart's account, three weeks before the investors wired their money.

It attached my report.

His message said the winter figure would not support the valuation. It told the finance team to use the demonstration output in the warranty schedule and leave the operator verification label in place.

I read it slowly.

Nobody had forged my handwriting. They had used my name to make their number look checked.

"Who gave you approval to mark Mr. Paredes as having verified the schedule?" Nora asked.

"My team handled the preparation."

"Your email says to leave his verification in place."

"We expected improvements."

"Which funded improvements?"

He asked for water.

The next exhibit was the capital plan. Stuart had signed the page removing the backup boilers. The next was his compensation record: a $1.2 million retention payment, released after the heat-note financing closed.

That money had already reached his personal account.

Linh sat across from me. Her expression went through shock, anger, and something like grief in less than a minute.

During the break, she whispered, "I thought there would be some explanation."

"There was," I said. "We just heard it."

Ruth later sent counsel the board's preserved messages. Two other directors had accepted Stuart's claim that engineering would catch up before winter. Neither could name a funded plan.

The outside review also found Linh's lost folder access was no accident. A request from Stuart had named her and ordered the restriction after her report reached the committee.

Her lawyer added that record to her response to his lawsuit.

My anger did not leave. It changed shape. I stopped replaying the chair moving away from the table. I began checking the exhibit numbers against our index.

Nora asked whether I would explain the heat figures at the emergency hearing.

"Celia should explain the capacity model," I said. "I'll explain the field records."

"That's exactly what we need."

That night, Pilar called while I was washing my lunchbox.

Stuart had asked the court to force immediate access under the revoked license. The investors had asked the court to block insider payments and preserve the records.

Both requests were on the same morning calendar.

"Tomorrow," Pilar said, "he'll ask a judge for the right he never paid you to receive."