The Bank Records Put A Price On His New Front Door

Ruth asked me to send the message without cropping it.

"The whole thing," she said. "Date, time, number. Save your bank statements, too."

"Can I change the locks?"

"Not today. He's still an owner. Your papers give you a process. We follow it."

I liked that answer more than I wanted to. A process had edges. I could work with edges.

Her office was above a tax firm off Market Street. I carried the waterproof pouch in my tackle box because my good bag had a broken strap.

Ruth lifted out the agreement and checked the signatures. Then she checked the escrow receipts against her own ledger.

"Your purchase funds are all here," she said. "$18,000. No withdrawals."

"He thinks I never read it."

"What matters is whether he did what triggers it."

The bank's transfer details named the receiving account: Cross Coastal Cushions LLC.

Ruth set her finger on that line.

"This is strong. We still need to connect the deposit and the use of the money."

I opened the ferry contract and the deposit receipt. Both bore the same invoice number. The advance had entered our account on Monday. On Tuesday, the exact amount had left for his new company.

He had labeled the transfer OWNER REIMBURSEMENT.

"Did you owe him that?" Ruth asked.

"No. We owe our foam supplier."

She made copies. She did not promise I would win by lunch.

I asked whether the hurricane papers were too old to matter.

"Read the line below the price," she said.

The option stayed in force while we both owned shares. We had signed each page. His initials sat beside mine at the bottom, large and loose.

"He had his own lawyer look at this," I said.

"I kept that lawyer's letter, too."

Ruth turned her screen so I could see it. The letter asked for one change to the notice address. Everything else had been accepted.

I remembered Emmett complaining about the cost of that review. He had called careful people expensive.

"The option requires written notice and a closing twenty business days later," she said. "Returning the money doesn't erase this trigger. But he may still fight the facts or the contract."

"Can he keep taking money meanwhile?"

"We'll ask the court to limit that while this is decided. I'll also ask him to agree to safeguards today."

Her fee deposit was $1,500. I paid it from my own checking account. That left $2,860 in my personal savings and a truck with 186,000 miles.

The escrow money stayed where it was. I needed that right more than I needed a new roll of vinyl.

Back at the shop, Emmett was waiting at the cutting table. His new logo was stitched on his shirt.

"You took this badly," he said.

"You took $38,040."

"I put years into this place."

"So did I. Mine had time cards."

He waved that off.

"Bring the ferry work over. I've got a bigger door. We can finish there, settle everything later."

"Who's we?"

"You'd get paid."

"With money you took from this shop?"

His smile thinned.

"Don't start making claims you can't prove."

I kept my hands flat on the table. Green thread lay across the heel of my palm.

"Send your plan to Ruth."

He glanced at the tackle box.

"You're paying a lawyer while we need supplies?"

"I'm paying her to read what we signed."

For one moment, he looked toward the file cabinet. Then his smile came back.

"You always did save too much paper."

He left carrying his coffee mug. I wrote down the time and his words while I could still hear them clearly.

At nine the next morning, Pilar came back.

I showed her the account balance. Then I showed her a work schedule with thirty-six numbered spaces.

"Your company will get a letter from my lawyer," I said. "I'm asking you to keep the contract here."

"With nineteen dollars?"

"With supplier credit against the first accepted batch. If I can get it. No extra money from you."

She read the schedule.

"Who helps you lift these?"

"Micah Bell. He cut patterns here before he went to warehouse work. I called him last night."

"Does he know the money situation?"

"Every dollar. He gets paid from the first batch payment. We wrote that down."

Pilar tapped the first inspection date.

"I can come in three days. If they pass, I sign. If they don't, I don't."

"That's what I need."

My supplier agreed to hold $6,400 in materials on credit until that first payment. I signed a personal guarantee after Ruth explained what it could cost me.

By noon, I had a foam order, a helper, and a chance.

Then the supplier called again.

"Laurel, your partner sent us a cancellation ten minutes ago. He says you don't have authority to order for the shop."