The Audit Followed A Payment Into Blake's Other Business Account

Lian Cho did not ask me whether Blake was a bad man.

She asked what time the export had started and whether the stored times used Nebraska time or a server clock.

“Server clock,” I said. “Six hours ahead that week.”

“Then we'll put both in the report.”

We sat in a plain rented office with a locked cabinet. The court's order gave Lian access to the relevant systems and payment records. It gave me no access of my own.

She shared only what I needed to identify the cooperative's files.

My thermometer read seventy-three. The office had no window that opened.

“You're warm?” Lian asked.

“I like to know whether it's me.”

She moved her desk fan so we could both feel it.

The export contained more than readings. It included service notes, alarm responses, and a table that matched site numbers to farm contacts.

Prairie Relay's staff had included that table to help Red Acre interpret the package.

“So they sold the key with the lock,” Ruth said when Chika briefed the negotiating group.

There had been no public leak. Lian found downloads by three named Red Acre employees, plus a copy inside its test system. That was bad enough. Those people had no right to see which farms answered alarms slowly or which barns were running near their limits.

Red Acre had also used the package in an early test model.

“Deleting one folder won't finish this,” Lian said.

Her report listed the copies, test results, saved model versions, and backups that needed to be traced.

Chika sent the list to Red Acre's lawyer.

“Your client now has notice of each item,” she wrote.

Meanwhile, the payment records told a smaller, meaner story.

Red Acre's $185,000 had landed in Prairie Relay's operating account. The next day, $92,500 went to Torrance Transition Services.

The invoice called it a special deal fee.

Blake had approved the payment to his own business.

There was no board vote approving it.

Martin had released the money anyway.

“Was it a disclosed fee?” I asked Chika.

“That's what the owners are asking now.”

Lian's report included an email from Martin to Blake, sent before the pilot sale.

We still need coop approval. Do you want me to hold the invoice?

Blake had answered:

Book it. Nadine can tidy the permissions after close.

I read those two sentences until the screen dimmed.

He had known there was a permission to get. He had simply planned to leave the getting to me.

“Don't read it again,” Chika said. “The copy won't improve.”

She printed it, numbered the page, and put it in the file.

That afternoon, Prairie Relay's three outside directors appointed a committee to handle the dispute without Blake or Martin. The owners received Lian's first report under the court's privacy rules.

By evening, Blake's power to sign contracts and move money had been suspended. Martin lost access to the bank system.

The people who had boxed my mug now needed written permission to pay an invoice.

I thought I would enjoy that more.

Instead, I thought about the junior support workers answering frightened farmers while their own paychecks sat inside a frozen sale.

I asked the committee to send a clear service notice.

The next morning, every member received one. Existing support remained in force. No farm needed to grant wider data rights to get help.

Marian Voss, an outside director, called me after it went out.

“I voted to eliminate your role,” she said. “Blake told us the visits were a cost we could cut.”

“You had my field reports.”

“Yes.”

I waited.

“I should have read them.”

She did not ask me to make her feel better, so I didn't.

At home, my father had spread my old repair receipts across his kitchen table.

“What are those for?” I asked.

“Your expenses. You said they still owed you mileage.”

“Baba, that's only $1,286.”

“Then it should be easy for them to find.”

He had clipped each receipt to the right trip log. For the first time since my firing, he was helping me collect instead of helping me retreat.

Morrow Vale sent a revised purchase outline two days later. It valued Prairie Relay's code, equipment, and ordinary contracts at $11.6 million. Any cooperative license would be negotiated and paid for separately.

The missing $6.8 million was no longer something Blake could explain away with a smile.

On Saturday, a process server came to my door.

Blake had sued me personally for $1.6 million, claiming I had ruined his expected proceeds from the sale.