Five Deposit Slips Put A Price On Gavin's Other Shop

Celia had laid the five deposit slips in order of date.

Beside each one sat an original Lantern Lace invoice, a replacement invoice, and the client's proof of payment. The order numbers matched all the way across.

"I checked for refunds," she said. "I checked for transfers back. There were none."

She read the amounts aloud.

"Three thousand two hundred. Twenty-four hundred. Eighteen hundred. Forty-one hundred. Twenty-nine hundred. Total: fourteen thousand four hundred dollars."

The money had gone into the competing shop's account. Our clients had paid deposits on our orders, using new payment instructions Gavin had sent them.

Lantern Lace had received none of it.

"What did he spend it on?" I asked.

The new account had opened empty. Those five deposits supplied its first funds. Two payments had used the full $14,400: $6,400 for rent and a lease deposit, then $8,000 for used shop equipment.

The supporting lease and sales bill named Rusk Touring Hair.

I pictured my workbench that first morning. Gavin telling clients I wanted rest while his new steamer sat across the river, paid for by work under my lamp.

"He called them referral fees in his summary," Celia said.

"Did we have a referral agreement?" Leena asked.

"None was produced. The clients confirmed these were deposits for the existing orders."

There were other errors in the books, mostly late entries and poor labels. Celia kept those separate. Her report did not turn every bad column into a crime.

That made the five matched payments harder to wave away.

Her full fee for the accounting was $3,600. She also confirmed the company's $2,680 debt to me for the hair supplier payment.

The weekly checks were wages. My $42,000 had been a capital payment, as the signed papers said. There was no record of a transfer of my share.

I read that paragraph twice.

It didn't praise me. It didn't need to. It put my money where it belonged.

The lawyers took us to a settlement meeting the following week. Gavin sat at the far end of a plain table. There were no clients to laugh at his jokes.

His first offer was to return the deposits and keep running the shop.

"No," I said.

Leena had asked me beforehand what I could live with. I could live with a loan. I could live with hard work. I couldn't keep building orders beside someone who tried to charge me rent on my own bench.

We offered to buy his sixty percent for an agreed price of $36,000. That figure came from the business figures and a separate valuation review, then bargaining between the lawyers.

It wasn't a prize the court handed me.

I had $16,000 left in savings after my bills and the supplier advance. A credit union had approved a $20,000 loan after reviewing the shop's records and expected orders.

Every dollar of the purchase price had a source. Every dollar of his debt had a destination.

Of the $36,000 paid at closing, $14,400 would go straight to Lantern Lace to restore the diverted deposits. Another $3,600 would cover the accounting bill he agreed to bear. Gavin would receive the remaining $18,000.

The recovered deposits belonged to the company. They weren't a discount I could put in my pocket.

"You're taking half my money," he said.

Leena turned the settlement sheet toward him.

"Your sale proceeds would pay the obligations listed here."

His lawyer asked for a private break.

While they were gone, I looked at the other terms. All eighteen blocks and six stands had to come back before closing. Gavin would give up management, access, keys, and any use of our name and order records.

He would withdraw the missing-stock claim. The final consent judgment would recognize my original forty percent interest and record the resolution of our claims. The purchase papers would transfer the remaining sixty percent to me.

We would each pay our own legal bills. Mine had reached $4,200.

I didn't like that number. I could still see what it had bought: access, records, and a way out of the room we were in.

Gavin also had to sign a correction to the clients who'd heard his announcement. I had not resigned. I had not taken the blocks. The payments would be credited to their original orders.

He came back and read that page longest.

"You need to humiliate me too?"

"I need the record fixed."

He took the papers away for two more days. I went back to the shop and finished a silver braid.

At six fourteen on Friday, Leena called.

"He signed," she said. "Closing is Monday. Bring your identification and the final inventory sheet."