The Audit Found Where The Deposits Went After Closing

The refund folder held nine requests.

One customer had canceled after a house fire. Another had asked us to return a book because her father was dying and wanted to hold it again. Rosalind had replied to both with warm words and no refund.

The books were in our crates.

I sat down before my knees made the choice for me.

"She told me she handled these," I said.

Jasper drew a chair beside mine.

"Now we find out what handled meant."

Nora arranged for an outside accountant, Mara Cho, to review the business records. The first review would cost $1,600. Martin let us use his empty upstairs office so the workbench could stay clear for the books.

Mara asked for statements, invoices, receipts, and the full record of customer payments.

She did not ask who seemed nice.

For two days, I carried boxes upstairs and answered questions that made me ashamed of how much I had left to Rosalind.

"Did you approve this transfer?"

"No."

"Did you see this refund request?"

"No."

"Who checked the account each month?"

"She gave me a summary. I checked the rent account myself."

Mara made a mark.

"You should have checked both. That doesn't mean you approved what she did."

I wrote that down too.

The missing customer deposits totaled $6,400. They had left the business account in small transfers labeled MATERIALS ADVANCE. Every one went to the same personal account that had received Bram's $12,000.

Together, the transfers came to $18,400.

There were no receipts for materials behind them.

Mara gave each transfer its own row. I matched the nine deposits to the yellow tickets in our drawer. One ticket had a child's drawing on the back, a crooked little house with smoke coming out of its roof.

"Do you need that side too?" I asked.

"Only the payment side for my report."

I copied both sides for the owner's file. The drawing was part of what she had trusted us to keep.

Rosalind had also entered the paid rent as overdue in a set of reports marked BUYOUT. The actual payments appeared on the next page as a supposed loan from her.

"She planned to tell you the business owed her," Mara said.

"And the customers to think I'd taken it."

Mara placed the rent ledger beside the bank statements. She drew one straight line between matching amounts.

I could understand that line. It joined money leaving one place to money reaching another. It did not care who had offered free cake at our opening.

We found a draft buyout agreement in the business files. Rosalind had dated it the day before the lock change.

It offered me $500 for my half of the studio, including my tools. It described me as responsible for all unpaid rent.

There was an empty signature line waiting for me.

I thought of her call in Nora's office. Sign over your share. I'll say it was a misunderstanding.

She had planned a price for my silence before she changed the lock.

The following Thursday, we gave the police copies of the records. An investigator met us at the studio, took a report, and asked us to keep every original. He made no promise about charges.

"We'll follow the documents," he said.

That was enough for that day.

Rosalind came for an arranged records review Friday morning. Her lawyer stayed beside her. She wore a soft green coat and carried a box of pastries.

"For everyone who's had such a hard week," she said.

Jasper left the box closed.

She found me at the small bench where I was repairing the damage to Ruth's cookbook under his guidance.

"You're letting outsiders pick through our lives," she said.

"They're checking the accounts."

"You know how numbers can look."

"I know how these look."

She lowered her voice.

"Half the town saw you outside that door. You can't put that back."

I fitted a piece of clean paper under the cover and checked its edge.

"I can send them the record."

"Nobody reads attachments."

From the front room, Martin said, "I read mine."

She turned. He stood holding his statement, which he had come to sign again for the next hearing.

For a moment, her face had no expression at all.

That night, I practiced on a cottonwood leaf from the walk along the Deschutes. Its stem was broken. I placed gold on one vein and left the torn space bare.

Jasper watched while he packed his scanner.

"You could bridge that," he said.

"It would cover the break."

He nodded.

My phone rang before he reached the door.

Nora sounded tired, but clear.

"Bram sent his full email chain. Rosalind told him to remove every family name before he showed the books to anyone else."