Mara Brought A Settlement Offer And The Ledger Behind It

I did not let Mara in until Tomas had stepped into view.

She went pale.

"I can leave."

"You can," I said. "Or you can come in and decide what you want to say."

She came inside.

The envelope held a proposed settlement. Garrick offered $85,000 for my complete treatment archive, all copies, and a statement that I had found no evidence linking his charts to any institution.

My $7,400 balance was included in the price.

"He's charging me my own money," I said.

Mara made a small, broken sound that might have been a laugh.

Tomas stayed by the safe table.

"If you're here about possible criminal conduct, you should know who I am," he said. He explained his role and gave her Ward's card. "You can speak with a lawyer before you tell us anything."

"Am I under arrest?"

"No. You're free to leave."

She sat down anyway.

She had worked for Garrick for eight years. He paid her $54,000 and called her indispensable whenever she asked for a raise. She arranged trucks, kept purchase files, and copied signatures from approved letters onto routine forms.

"Routine," she repeated. "That's what he called them."

I said nothing.

Her eyes settled on my boats.

"I packed the charts in their old frames. Some shipment papers got tucked behind the backing while I checked the list. I forgot them. Then you sent the intake inventory."

"Why did you ask about them?"

"Because he asked me first. He wanted to know whether you'd thrown the backing away."

She took a small notebook out of her coat, then held it against her chest.

Tomas did not reach for it.

"Keep it with you until you've spoken with counsel," he said. "Ward can arrange a time to receive it."

Mara looked surprised. So did I, though I should have known better by then.

"It's my work notebook," she said. "Truck dates. Crate numbers. Things he told me to change."

"Then get advice about it," he said.

She called an attorney from her own phone. We moved out of earshot while she spoke. Afterward, she asked us to help arrange a meeting the following morning.

Before she left, she gave me the settlement envelope.

"That's yours. He told me to wait while you signed."

"You'll have a long wait," I said.

For the first time, her smile held.

I sent the offer to Priya and Ward. Priya answered that I should make no reply until she reviewed it. Ward asked for the original envelope and a statement about its delivery.

Paper moved. Nothing crashed. Still, the room felt different.

Tomas watched me fold the corner of a scrap too sharply. It tore.

"That one's had a hard crossing," he said.

"I could pay off my equipment with $85,000."

"Yes."

"You're supposed to say I shouldn't think about that."

"You'd still think about it. You'd just stop telling me."

I looked up.

He met my eyes, then gave me room to look away first.

I told him about building the studio after a large conservation firm closed my department. I had borrowed $26,000. I still owed $11,200. Some months I paid myself less than my teenage nephew earned at his summer job.

"He saw all that," I said. "Or enough of it."

"He saw a price he hoped you had."

The next morning Mara met Ward with her lawyer. I was not there. Later, Ward said the notebook had been received and its entries would need independent checks.

Two days passed without a new threat.

I treated a storm-damaged logbook. I ate an actual lunch. Tomas called to ask whether a faded label might use the same ink as an erased mark.

"Maybe," I said.

"My favorite expensive answer."

On Friday afternoon, a courier brought a demand from Garrick's attorney. It claimed Garrick owned every photograph made during treatment and required surrender of my archive by Monday.

Priya answered with the signed agreement.

Then she sent me a copy of her reply.

"You don't have to make him agree with the contract," she said. "You have to keep the contract."

I put it beside my first boat.

At closing time, two men arrived with rolling cases. One wore a badge clipped to his belt. The other carried a sheet with my name across the top.

"Court-ordered collection," the first man said. "We need your drives. Now."