The Payout Export Named a Publisher I Had Never Approved

I did not open the signature link.

I saved Nolan's message with its full header, then called the number on our distributor agreement. I used the agreement in my binder, not a number from his email.

Morrowgate Audio assigned me a case number.

"My name is Meredith Pike," I said. "I'm the sole member of Still Measure Audio. I need to report a payment dispute and preserve account records."

The woman on the line asked for proof of my role. I sent our company papers through her secure upload page.

She did not promise to reverse anything.

"There was a catalog migration," she said. "Our records show approval."

"Please preserve the approval, every version, and the logs behind it."

Beside me, Asha started a list.

April: $21,840.

May: $22,660.

June: $24,920.

The three batches made $69,420. Each export listed the same books, the same recording codes, and a new publisher account. Hollow Finch had received all three payments.

Another $18,460 was due the next week.

"Can you hold the next batch while you review the licenses?" I asked.

"I can request a dispute hold. I can't tell you the result yet."

That was fair. I wrote down her name, the time, and what she had actually said.

At noon, we ate cheese crackers at the worktable.

"You need a lawyer," Asha said.

"I know."

"I enjoy being right when it isn't expensive. Today is disappointing."

I called Ruth Keene, a local lawyer whose office handled business disputes. She offered a meeting that afternoon. Her retainer was $2,500.

I paid from the savings account I had kept in my name. Nolan had called it my rainy-day jar.

Rain was coming down hard enough to blur the Blue Ridge beyond town.

Before we left, I checked the state's public business records. Hollow Finch had been formed five months earlier. Nolan was its manager. Its mailing address was a small office off Hendersonville Road.

The other manager was Celia Voss.

I knew Celia. Nolan had hired her to help with promotion. Her invoices called her a catalog consultant. She had brought lemon cake to our winter recording day and asked where we kept the raw tracks.

I had shown her the coffee station instead.

"That doesn't prove what you're thinking," Asha said when I read the name.

"No."

"It proves two managers. Start there."

Ruth's office smelled of paper and wet coats. She let me finish without once telling me to calm down.

I put the blue binder beside the exports.

"He had access," I said. "Does that mean he could do this?"

"Access and authority aren't always the same," she said. "We need the contracts, the approval he submitted, and the distributor's response."

She read our payment clause twice.

"Who signed these?"

"The authors, the narrators, and me. Nolan signed some later production invoices. Never a transfer of rights."

"Any separate agreement letting him sell the catalog?"

"None."

She did not call the money mine. Much of it belonged to authors and performers. Our studio held it in the collection account, kept a ledger, and paid each share.

That distinction mattered to me.

"June is waiting for her share," I said. "Her roof needs work."

"Then we ask for an accounting and protection of the funds," Ruth said. "We don't start by guessing where every dollar went."

She sent preservation letters to Nolan, Celia, Hollow Finch, and Morrowgate. She requested the migration packet and notice before any held funds were released.

By evening, Morrowgate confirmed the $18,460 hold.

For the first time all day, I took a full breath.

At home, Nolan stood in the kitchen wearing the shirt I had ironed on Sunday.

"You hired counsel?"

"I did."

"You spent our money on a stranger?"

"I spent $2,500 getting advice. Where is the $69,420?"

He opened a drawer, then shut it without taking anything out.

"It's working capital."

"For whose company?"

His phone lit on the counter. Celia's name appeared above a message long enough for me to read without touching it.

Love, did she sign? We need the closure before the next deal.

I looked at him.

He turned the phone facedown.

"Don't make this ugly."

"How long have you been with her?"

"Since January," he said. "But that has nothing to do with the company."

I looked at the company name on my notes. Both of their names sat beneath it.

I picked up my overnight bag. I had packed it before coming inside.

"Send anything about the business to Ruth."

I stayed in Asha's spare room that night. She gave me a towel and asked whether I wanted the window open.

"A little," I said.

At 9:14, my laptop chimed. Morrowgate had sent the migration packet to my verified owner account.

The first page bore my name beneath a signature I had never made.