The Missing Fractions Led Us To An Account I Had Never Opened

Petra Novak met us in an office above a tax preparer, with rain running down the window behind her.

She was forty-eight and Czech American. She wore a gray sweater with a repaired cuff and kept her dark hair pinned low. Her desk held a calculator, three deed books, and no family pictures.

She was an independent mineral-title researcher. She worked for whoever hired her to check the records, not for Caleb's company or the gas operator. Her first question was whether anyone had already paid her to examine this tract.

"Copies first," she said.

I handed her the stack.

She read without nodding. When Ines offered coffee, she lifted one finger and finished a line before answering.

"Please. Black."

I liked her at once.

She charged $85 an hour. We agreed on a $340 first review. Ines slid her credit card across the desk.

"Loan," I said.

"Written down," she said. "Don't insult a payroll clerk."

Petra circled two fractions.

"Your grandmother owned three eighths of the minerals under this forty-eight-acre tract. The will passed that interest to you. We'll confirm the recorded chain."

"But the checks say three over one hundred twenty-eight."

"Different question."

She wrote slowly enough that I could follow.

Forty-eight acres in a ninety-six-acre gas unit. One-half, times three-eighths ownership, times a one-eighth lease royalty.

"Three over one hundred twenty-eight," I said.

"Yes. Your share of that unit's production under that lease. It doesn't mean you own three one-hundred-twenty-eighths of the land's minerals."

Caleb had once called it a crumb.

Petra put a line through the word I wrote in my notebook.

"Fractions don't care whether someone respects them."

She checked the deed references and the estate papers. Then she called Stonecup Gas, the operator listed on the old checks. I sat beside her and proved my identity over the phone.

The owner-relations clerk sounded puzzled.

"The well hasn't stopped paying," she said.

I looked at Ines.

Her mouth opened, then closed.

"My husband said the checks stopped."

The clerk paused.

"There's an ownership update in your file. I can send your account history and the supporting papers through our secure portal."

We used an email address Caleb had never managed.

While we waited, Petra asked about the savings transfer. She wrote the amount on a separate page.

"Don't combine that with royalties yet. Two routes. Two sets of records."

I understood that language. Two map sheets could touch and still come from different surveys. If I forced their seams together, everything farther down the sheet would drift.

The download arrived before we finished our coffee.

Stonecup had paid $6,732.48 over eight months. Every payment had gone to a business account in the name of Raines Boundary Services.

For the first six of those months, Caleb had told me our checks were getting smaller. For the last six weeks, he had claimed they were gone.

"He used our rent money to make me feel expensive," I said.

Ines put her hand over mine.

"You weren't expensive. He was lying."

Attached to the payment history was a Release and Assignment of Mineral Interest.

It claimed I had transferred my inherited three-eighths share to Caleb's company for $10 and other value.

The title made it sound like a receipt. The second paragraph gave away the minerals themselves.

There was my name.

There was something that looked like my signature.

"I didn't sign this."

Petra didn't tell me to calm down. She saved the file, printed it, and wrote the download time on a cover sheet.

"Then we treat it as disputed and preserve what we received."

The first accounting also listed a $24,000 lease bonus. That payment hadn't come from Stonecup. It appeared in a company closing statement Caleb had submitted to support the account change.

Payor: Hearth Ridge Resources.

Purpose: Deep lease, Rivera forty-eight-acre tract.

Broker contact: Owen Pike.

I heard Grandma saying she wouldn't sign. She had said it while snapping beans, while putting stamps on bills, while Caleb smiled across her kitchen table.

"He said he wanted to learn from her," I told Petra.

"He learned where she kept her mail," Ines said.

Petra sent Stonecup written notice that I denied signing the assignment. She asked them to hold future disputed payments while the title issue was reviewed. She copied me on everything.

"This schedule helps us check the money," she said. "It isn't a magic deed. We still need certified records and a lawyer."

That steadied me more than a promise would have.

On the way out, my phone rang.

Caleb's name filled the screen.

I let it ring while Petra gathered the printouts.

"Get the recorded copy tomorrow," she said. "All pages. Especially the acknowledgment."

I looked down at the date beside my supposed signature.

It was the Saturday Ines and I had spent in Huntington for her sister's surgery.

The notary block said I had appeared in Beckley that morning.

Then Caleb sent a picture of our apartment door with one sentence beneath it.

We need to discuss what you took from this house.