The Buyer Asked Who Could Actually Open The Loading Gate

I reached the pad at eleven twenty, wearing my own safety vest.

The Paper Switch name was stitched across its back. I had ordered those vests three winters earlier, after a visiting driver took Luis for a security guard.

Douglas stood beside a black rental car with four visitors. He saw me and lifted one hand.

“This is unnecessary.”

Leona Price stepped away from him.

“I asked her to come.”

She was short, wore scuffed work boots, and carried a red folder. Her eyes went first to the tracks, then to our gate notice.

AUTHORIZED LOADING STAFF ONLY. CHECK IN WITH PAPER SWITCH.

“Has that sign always been there?” she asked.

“Since we replaced the fence in 2018,” I said.

Douglas laughed softly.

“Mireille likes her labels.”

Leona opened the folder.

“Your sale schedule lists this as a company-operated site.”

“It is our helium,” he said.

“That wasn't my question.”

I asked Luis to bring the visitor log and the current loading board. Then I checked the wind flag at the far fence. A crew was checking a hose connection under the canopy.

The shift was running. That mattered to me.

“Walk us through one car,” Leona said.

I showed her the inspection sheet, the product test release, the car number, and the signed loading order.

“Basin Lantern releases the product,” I said. “Paper Switch assigns the trained crew and runs the transfer. The railroad handles the switch under its own rules.”

“Who pays your crew?”

“My LLC.”

“Who pays your LLC?”

“Basin Lantern pays a $38,000 monthly base fee, plus the agreed charge for each completed move.”

Douglas shifted his feet.

“All internal.”

“Separate payroll, insurance, bank account, and tax returns,” I said.

Leona wrote that down.

I did not tell her how many weekends I had spent keeping that line clear. I gave her invoice numbers.

Luis brought the log. He pointed out the six crew members on duty and the truck waiting at bay two.

“Nobody missed a check,” he told me.

“Thank you.”

Douglas reached for the loading board.

“We can replace a vendor.”

Luis kept hold of it.

Leona looked at Douglas.

“Under what provision?”

“Counsel is reviewing that.”

Edwin Marsh arrived in a dusty pickup before we entered the pad. He carried the trust's copy of the site drawing.

“The company leases the equipment footprint,” he said. “Paper Switch holds the operating agreement. Separate fees. Separate duties.”

He spread the drawing on his hood.

The red boundary around the equipment stood inside a larger blue boundary around the loading pad. My father had teased me about paying a lawyer to draw two boxes.

Those boxes were suddenly worth looking at.

“Did you receive a consent request?” Leona asked Edwin.

“No.”

Douglas leaned close to him.

“We should talk privately.”

“After I answer her questions.”

The wind lifted the corner of the drawing. I held it flat with my glove.

Leona asked to see the service records. I could provide Paper Switch's records with June's approval. Basin Lantern would have to provide its own books.

“I won't copy files I no longer have access to,” I said.

“Good,” Leona said. “We need a clean review.”

Douglas's jaw worked once.

“The sale employs ninety-three people,” he told me.

I knew their names. I had called some of them at two in the morning when winter weather changed a departure.

“Then the buyer should know what it's buying.”

Leona closed her folder.

“We're pausing the asset review. Our deposit stays in escrow under the existing terms while counsel examines this.”

Douglas looked as if someone had shut off the heat.

“We have a closing date.”

“We also have an accuracy certificate.”

After the visitors left, I sat with Luis in the small crew room. Someone had repaired the loose handle on the kettle.

“Are they closing us?” he asked.

“The work is still here. The sale needs correcting.”

“He told us you wanted to stop every shipment.”

I showed him our notice.

He read the service sentence twice.

“Can I put a copy up?”

“Put it beside the shift list.”

I drove home after checking payroll. My daughter, Celeste, was doing community college work at our kitchen table. At nineteen, she still left pencils inside open bags of crackers.

“You got fired?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“And you're still working?”

“For my other business.”

She considered that.

“Do we lose the house?”

“No.”

I had paid that debt. Saying it aloud steadied me.

At six twelve, June sent me a new letter from company counsel. Basin Lantern demanded my original packet and claimed I had taken company property.

The final paragraph said they would ask a judge to bar me from the loading pad by morning.