The Attorney Read The Pages My Wife Had Left Behind

I didn't open the envelope.

I photographed it where it lay, then put it on Simone's desk. The return address belonged to Juniper Room Productions, our Stillwater client. I called its accounts clerk from the number on my own signed agreement.

"I'm requesting copies of my royalty records," I said.

"We sent those to your agent."

"Which agent?"

"Harbor Basin Consulting. Your wife updated the instructions last year."

The clerk asked for written proof of my rights. I sent only the signed pages she needed. Then I called Nadia Farouk.

Nadia was forty-six, Egyptian American, and an entertainment-contract attorney. She had handled a license dispute for a lighting builder I knew. Her office was near Water Street in downtown Henderson, above a place that sold work boots.

"Bring every page," she said. "People bring page nine and ask me to defeat page three."

I took the steel case and Simone's debt summary. Ikaika came to carry the case. He stayed because I asked him to.

Nadia read the proposed sale first.

"Your wife negotiated the original licenses?"

"Yes."

"And signed these riders?"

"Every one."

She checked the signatures, then the dates.

"Why did you keep them separately?"

"A shop flood ruined my first notebook. After that, originals went in steel. Copies went upstairs."

"Good flood. Bad filing system."

She laid out the Stillwater rider.

I'd developed its core mechanism before our marriage. When we formed the workshop, we'd paid separate lawyers to draw a property agreement. Simone had kept her inherited condo outside the business. I'd kept a short list of designs and their performance royalties.

The company got permission to build the physical equipment and keep its fabrication fees. It didn't get ownership of my listed performance rights.

"She called it fair," I said.

"It was useful to her then," Nadia said.

Juniper's Stillwater license had an attached rider. It named me as the personal owner and required my written consent for any assignment of those rights. The client, Simone for Stageworks, and I had signed. A notary had acknowledged our signatures. The other designs on my reserved list used matching riders.

Nadia tapped the raised seal.

"This helps prove who signed. The words do the work. A stamp doesn't turn a bad agreement into a good one."

"Can Copper Veil buy it?"

"The company cannot sell rights it never owned. And your company agreement also requires both members to approve this kind of asset sale. Have you approved anything?"

"No."

"Then stop letting them talk as though Friday is weather."

Ikaika leaned forward.

"Can we change the locks?"

"You can stop proposing things for five minutes," she said.

He sat back.

Nadia made a list: preserve records, obtain statements, identify accounts, confirm client rights. She told me to copy only material I could lawfully access and keep the originals as they were.

"No guessing passwords. No deleting her mail. No improving your evidence with a speech."

"I build traps with emergency releases," I said.

"Keep that habit."

Back at the shop, I used my own administrator account to export the shared contract folder. I saved the files without changing their names. Ikaika wrote down the time and sat beside me while the export ran.

The Juniper clerk called before we finished.

"Your rider matches ours," she said. "I've sent the payment history to the address you confirmed."

Four payments in 2025. Each was $12,000. All $48,000 had gone to Harbor Basin.

I hadn't received a cent.

Simone had told me Stillwater's run had been cut and its royalties were being held against repairs. I'd accepted that because I'd been fixing a lift for a touring show, working nights, eating dinner beside a drill press.

I felt foolish in a way that made my hands hot.

Ikaika put a bottle of water beside the keyboard.

"Keep reading," he said.

The shared folder held an old client contact list. One name was new to me: Silver Mesa Touring.

I called and asked for its contract manager.

"We've been trying to reach you," the woman said. "Our director wants approval for a new Stillwater backdrop."

"You have a Stillwater license?"

"Of course. Exclusive western states rights."

I looked at Juniper's contract on the screen. Its exclusive territory covered the same states through December 2028.

"Would you send your complete agreement to my attorney?" I asked.

"Is there a problem?"

I gave her Nadia's address and said I needed to check the terms.

Ten minutes later, Nadia called.

"Sit down before you open what I just forwarded."

I sat on my drafting stool.

The first page named Silver Mesa. The second promised the same exclusive territory Juniper already held.

At the bottom was Simone's signature.