The Buyer Sent A Receipt For The Supposed Display Loan

I didn't call Corbin a thief in the shop.

I asked him to email the release to Tessa and me. Then I signed the count sheet beneath a note that said I disputed the release and had not approved any transfer.

Corbin looked at the note.

“You always make simple things ugly.”

“An empty slot isn't simple.”

He walked us out and locked the door behind us.

In Tessa's car, I opened my tin. The three scraps rested in gray padding. I lifted the amber piece and held it toward the weak morning sun.

“Is that chapel glass?” she asked.

“No. A pantry door in Camden. The owner gave me the broken corner.”

“Good,” she said. “Always say where it came from.”

I put it back. She was right. A piece without a history could become whatever a seller wanted it to be.

That afternoon, I hired Mara Ellis, a Dover lawyer who handled business disputes. Her first payment was $2,500. After I wrote the check, I had $1,146 left in savings.

She didn't promise I'd get the shop back by Friday.

“Show me what you own,” she said. “Then show me what you were trusted to hold.”

I made two stacks.

She read both before speaking again.

“The society needs its own lawyer. Your interests overlap, but they're not the same.”

Tessa had already called one. The society wanted its glass safe. I wanted that too, along with access, an account of our money, and an end to Corbin speaking for me.

Mara asked for my records from the Friday listed on the release.

I had a job sheet signed by the Wilmington homeowner at eight that morning and five that evening. My helper had worked beside me. Our truck had stayed in that driveway.

“Useful,” she said. “But being elsewhere doesn't prove you never signed a document. We need the source of this signature.”

I liked her more for saying that.

Meanwhile, Tessa called Pike House Restoration using the number on the release. Its owner, Elin Pike, agreed to speak with the society's lawyer and send her records.

Elin was turning an old house near Odessa into a small inn. She had bought the window for the landing above the stairs.

“Bought,” Tessa repeated when she called me.

An email arrived while we were still talking.

Attached were a receipt, a bank transfer record, and a sales certificate from Voss Architectural Finds.

I had never heard that business name.

The certificate stated that Corbin personally owned the chapel window, free of outside claims. The receipt showed $18,400 paid in full.

There was no loan term. No society name. No blue tag in the sale photograph.

I wrote the attachment names and the date received on a fresh sheet. Mara saved the original messages too. We needed more than pictures passed from one worried person to another.

But the little milk-white triangle showed beside the lowest blue step.

“That's it,” I said.

Elin joined a call with both lawyers the next morning. Her voice sounded tired and careful.

“It's still in its crate,” she said. “The stair work ran late. I haven't installed it.”

“Please don't,” the society's lawyer said.

“I paid for it. I need to know how I get my money back.”

Nobody blamed her for asking.

She agreed to keep it at the storage warehouse while the ownership claim was reviewed. She wanted any return arranged through the lawyers, with her refund addressed in writing.

“I thought I was saving a window,” she told me.

“You kept it in the crate. That helped.”

Afterward, Mara sent Corbin a demand to preserve records. It covered paper files, messages, sales accounts, and the original release document. The society's lawyer sent its demand for the window's return.

Corbin called me before dinner.

“You went around me to my client.”

“She bought property you said was on loan.”

“That's how placement deals work.”

“Then send the agreement that says so.”

He breathed into the phone.

“I can make your half of that shop worth nothing.”

I wrote his words on the same pad where I'd recorded the lockout. I noted the time after we hung up.

The next morning, Beth brought me a box of loose window stops from her stair landing. She had come to my apartment because the shop phone went unanswered.

“He told me you quit,” she said.

I showed her my lawyer's card.

“I'm trying to get lawful access so I can finish.”

“Ken called him too. He wants his $3,400 deposit protected.”

Their combined deposits were $6,200. Suddenly every rack in my mind had a person standing beside it.

Mara filed my company case that afternoon. The society filed its ownership claim through its lawyer, and they asked for coordinated urgent hearings.

Before dark, Corbin sent a photograph of our loading bay.

A rental truck sat backed up to it.

His message read, If you want to count things, count them soon.