The Final Audit Put A Price On Their Missing Statements

Tessa's message was four lines long.

"Don't list the artist royalty balance in the house cash sheet. It reduces what we can show as available. Use owner support for payments to Parisa. We'll clean up the reports after closing."

It had gone to Curtis before they bought the house.

He had answered, "Fine. She won't ask while Granite is down."

I read that last line twice. He had planned around my trust as if it were a date on a calendar.

The messages came from the business files produced under the court's order. Leila kept the full chains and attachments. Maya said we would use them with the records, without guessing at what either person had thought in private.

There was enough in what they had written.

"I kept asking if business would recover," I said.

"He knew that," Maya said.

I brushed a few grains of sugar into a curve on Leila's desk. Then I stopped.

"Sorry."

She slid a saucer under my hand.

"Use this."

We worked through the final totals.

Granite Lantern had paid $684,000 for twenty-eight sublicenses. Eight direct licenses had brought another $62,000 into the two businesses. Those contracts and receipts had been missing from Tessa's first spreadsheet.

Total receipts subject to the license were $746,000.

At thirty percent, my royalty was $223,800. I had received $18,600. The unpaid balance was $205,200.

Leila had checked returns, credits, and the dates on every payment. None changed that total.

"No double counting the house transfers?" I asked.

"None. The $105,600 sent toward the purchase came from receipts already in this column. It shows where money went. It isn't another royalty charge."

She gave me the report. It was forty-three pages, with records behind each finding.

Her fee for the full audit was $14,400. Maya's enforcement work would reach $18,000 by the final hearing. We asked for both under the license, with bills attached for review.

The audit total included the first review and each bill I had already paid. Leila had marked the payments, so collecting costs would restore my savings instead of paying her twice.

Maya added Tessa to the case based on her role in moving money and sending false reports. Tessa hired her own lawyer. After that, she no longer called herself only the bookkeeper.

Curtis offered $60,000.

"Immediate payment," his lawyer wrote. "No admission. All rights transferred."

I read the last three words aloud.

Maya shook her head.

We sent back the audit and a proposal that left my copyright with me, paid the proven balance and costs, and ended his license on clear terms. Existing buyers could move to direct agreements without paying twice for rights they already held.

I called Noreen to explain the plan after both lawyers approved the wording.

"We need your winter update," she said. "Should we hold production?"

"Keep the current edition in use under the interim agreement. I'll give you a firm date for the new one."

"And the credit?"

"Parisa Mehran. Same as the old contract."

I put that job on my wall calendar. For months, the squares had held only legal deadlines.

A patrol instructor called about a dashed line on plate seven that afternoon.

"That's the summer trail," I told him. "It isn't a safe winter route just because it's on a map."

"Can you make the warning larger?"

"Yes. Send me the page your students use."

He did. I moved two labels and enlarged the warning. The next day, he sent a photograph of the corrected sheet pinned above a classroom bench. I kept that picture beside the audit report.

On a Tuesday in March, Tessa waited outside Maya's office. She had asked for a meeting with both lawyers present.

"I thought he had bought your drawings," she told me.

Maya laid the four-line message on the table.

"Why did you call it an artist royalty balance?"

Tessa looked at her own lawyer.

"I knew something was owed," she said. "I didn't know she would make this kind of claim."

"The rate was on the reports you received," Leila said.

Tessa rubbed her thumb along the table edge.

"I put everything into that house."

I looked at her for a long moment.

"So did I," I said. "I just didn't know its address."

No one spoke after that.

By the next week, the house was listed with the required notice. Any sale needed an approved arrangement for the proceeds. Listing it was a start, but Curtis still refused the debt.

I went back to drawing a runout fan for a rescue class near the mouth of Ogden Canyon. A fan spread because moving snow lost its tight channel. I made the edge wide enough to show what a narrow drawing could hide.

Maya called before I finished shading.

"He rejected the final proposal. We're going ahead with the hearing."

I put down the pencil.

"I'll bring the folio."