Chapter 2 - Nora Refuses the Ten Thousand
I did not touch the pen.
Wade kept it beside the deed anyway, positioned neatly across the
signature line as though all that remained was for grief to make me
obedient.
Instead, I picked up the ten-thousand-dollar check.
Lorraine’s shoulders relaxed.
Then I tore it once.
Not theatrically.
Just down the middle.
Wade stood so fast his chair scraped backward.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Declining your offer.”
“That land is Mercer property.”
“Then you won’t mind proving it.”
His face changed.
Barely.
But enough.
I had spent six years in the Marines before building the remote
cybersecurity consulting business Wade liked to dismiss as “computer
work.”
The Corps had not taught me to detect lies by magic.
It had taught me something less glamorous and more useful.
Slow down.
Observe.
Verify.
Do not let someone else’s urgency become yours.
I closed the folder.
“You said thirty days.”
“That’s right.”
“According to what?”
“The trust.”
“Which trust?”
Wade looked at Lorraine.
Again.
That second glance mattered more than the first.
I slid the folder back toward him.
“My attorney will contact yours.”
Lorraine’s voice hardened.
“You don’t need an attorney.”
“Then this should be inexpensive.”
Wade planted both hands on my table.
“Garrett would not want you turning this into a war.”
My chest tightened.
For one dangerous second, grief almost won.
Then I remembered Garrett laughing beside the barn last spring, holding
a survey stake and saying:
If Wade ever tells you something is simple, check where he put the fine
print.
At the time, I thought he was joking about an equipment lease.
Now I wasn’t sure.
I stood.
“You need to leave.”
Lorraine stared at me.
“This is our family land.”
I opened the kitchen door.
“Then bring documents.”
Wade grabbed the folder.
Outside, a white pickup waited beside a gray SUV.
There was a third vehicle near the gate.
A survey truck.
I watched its rear tires.
Mud packed into the treads.
Red clay.
Not the dark mountain soil around my cabin.
May you like
I had seen that same red clay three days earlier.
In fresh tracks behind Garrett’s locked equipment shed.
