The Rival's Purchase Sheet Put A Price On Our Customers

Ezra's next message named the retirement payment.

Eight thousand dollars.

"For my sixty-five percent?" I asked Ruth.

"Don't answer yet."

She read our agreement. Ezra could offer his share for sale, but he could not bring in a new member without my written consent. I also had the first chance to buy on the same terms.

"His share isn't his job," she said. "You can remove his power to manage without pretending his ownership vanished. We'll use the notice and vote rules you both signed."

She prepared notice of a special meeting for the following week. The subjects were clear: Ezra's role, the missing money, the customer contracts, and permission for the company to bring claims.

She also sent demands that Ezra and Wren Canvas preserve messages, files, patterns, and payment records.

I paid Ruth's $3,000 retainer from my own savings. She wrote the payment into her records as mine, not the shop's.

"No blurred lines," she said.

She asked me to list what had changed while I was away. I wrote dates beside the lost bank access, the retirement cake, and the missing order cards. Seeing them on one page hurt more than hearing Ezra's offer. He had made time for every step.

The next morning, I went to Wren Canvas with Odette. Ruth had said I could ask for our property, but I should leave if the talk turned ugly.

Cal Wren met us in the front room. He was the owner. Bolts of cloth leaned behind his desk. Our customer names were written on a pad beside his elbow.

"Ezra said you'd agreed," he told me.

"Show me what I agreed to."

"That's between you two."

Odette placed Margo's invoice on his desk.

"This lady paid twenty-seven hundred dollars. Your office asked for thirteen hundred and fifty more. What work have you done?"

"Planning."

"Please show us the work record."

He shut the pad.

"I'm not opening my books to you."

"Then don't call planning a finished sail," she said, still polite.

I saw one of our cardboard corner patterns behind his chair. My thumbprint sat in blue paint near its hole.

"That belongs to our loft."

"I bought the package."

He tapped the closed pad. "Those measurements bring repeat work. That's what I paid for."

"From whom?"

Cal pulled a sheet out of his desk. Perhaps he thought it would send us away.

The heading read CUSTOMER FILE AND PRODUCTION SLOT PURCHASE.

Below it were eighteen names and a price of $14,400.

Payment was made to Ezra Bell personally.

Near the bottom, in bold type, were the words NO PREPAID LIABILITIES ASSUMED.

Cal had signed beneath them.

"May I have a copy?" I asked.

"Take it. Your partner sold it. Deal with him."

He slid the sheet across the desk.

Odette held it at the edges.

"Thank you," she said. "Now, before this sale, did you see the paid invoices?"

"Ask my lawyer."

We left with the copy and without the pattern. On the sidewalk, I wanted to go back for it. I could almost feel its smooth edge against my palm.

Odette touched my sleeve.

"We have something worth more in our hands."

Ruth agreed when she saw the sheet.

"It proves a sale to Ezra," she said. "It doesn't yet prove what Cal knew. We'll ask for the messages."

That afternoon, Ezra came to the loft. I had asked Margo to stay while we checked her boat measurements, so I wasn't alone.

He looked at her notebook, then at me.

"You're making promises you can't keep."

"I'm checking measurements."

"The younger shops can turn these around. You can't even lift a roll anymore."

I could lift one end. I had never been foolish enough to lift both.

"Where is the thirty-one thousand eight hundred dollars?" I asked.

Margo stopped writing.

"Earned," he said.

"Show me the approval."

"I kept this place alive while you played nurse."

I felt my hands go cold. I put them flat on the cutting table.

"My sister has nothing to do with those transfers."

He pulled a folded paper from his coat.

It was a notice he had written himself, claiming I had abandoned the business and lost my right to enter.

"You should read it carefully," he said.

The page called my eleven weeks away an absence without notice. I opened my phone and found the messages with my return date. His raised thumbs were still beneath them. I showed Margo the dates, then saved copies. I had no wish to argue with a page when I could answer it with another record.

"I'll give it to Ruth."

His face changed at her name.

"Then I'll give her something too."

He left the notice on the table and went downstairs.

I called Ruth. She asked me to scan every page, including the blank backs. Margo wrote down what she had heard and signed it.

At dusk, Ruth called again.

Ezra's lawyer had warned that Cal planned to collect the shop's remaining patterns in the morning. Ezra claimed they were part of his sale.

Ruth said, "Bring your ownership records. We're asking the court to stop that pickup."