Chapter 3: The Buyer’s File
The buyer’s office stood in a low glass building near the edge of town, the kind of place that looked unremarkable from the road and expensive once you stepped inside.
I arrived in my 2004 Ford pickup. I parked between two polished cars and checked that the brown folder was still on the passenger seat. The closing file was inside, just as my attorney had instructed.
She was waiting near the entrance. She didn’t ask if I was nervous. She only glanced at the folder.
“Did you bring the complete closing file?”
“Yes.”
“Good. We’ll listen first. If something doesn’t make sense, we ask them to explain it.”
That sounded simple enough. It was harder to do once we were seated across from the buyer’s counsel in a conference room with a long table and a pitcher of water nobody touched.
The company’s attorney introduced herself, then explained that the company wanted to clarify why it had asked to meet.
“We’re not asking you to sign anything today,” she said. “And we’re not asking you to make a decision about anyone’s conduct. We want to show you records of a separate contact we received during the negotiations.”
My attorney placed a notepad on the table.
“Please distinguish that contact from the purchase negotiations with Fay,” she said. “And tell us what your records can establish, not what you think may have happened.”
The buyer’s counsel nodded.
“The purchase negotiations were conducted through Ms. Mitchell and her representatives. The documents we’re discussing today were not part of the signed purchase agreement.”
I felt my shoulders ease a fraction, then tightened them again. I didn’t know yet what “separate” meant or how much trouble it could still contain.
The attorney opened a slim file.
“Our records show that Ranata Mitchell contacted a company employee while the purchase was under discussion. I can’t tell you that every communication was retained, but we found an email and a related document.”
She turned a printed page toward us. At the top was a date, eleven months before closing. Beneath it was Ranata’s name and an email address I recognized.
I read the first lines twice.
I’m Fay Mitchell’s older sister and a family point of contact regarding the property.
The sentence was careful. It didn’t say she owned the land. It didn’t say I had appointed her. But it made my stomach pull tight all the same.
“What did she say she wanted?” I asked.
The buyer’s counsel tapped the page.
“She offered to provide background about the family and the property. She also asked to speak with someone involved in the project.”
“Did she say I sent her?”
“Not in this email.”
My attorney leaned forward slightly.
“Was she told that the company would not discuss the property with anyone except Fay or her authorized representatives?”
The buyer’s counsel glanced at another page.
“I don’t see that in the record I have here. I also don’t see a response confirming that she was authorized to represent Ms. Mitchell.”
I looked down again. A few lines farther along, Ranata had written that she could help the company “understand the family’s position” and share information that might be useful before the next stage of planning.
My first instinct was to ask what information she gave them. My second was to stop myself. I had learned, in the last few days, how easily a question could outrun the evidence.
“Is this the complete record of the contact?” my attorney asked.
“It’s what we’ve located so far.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No,” the company’s counsel said. “It isn’t.”
My attorney wrote something on her pad.
“We’d like the complete communication file, including internal notes, attachments, and any records of follow-up.”
“I understand. I’ll take that request back to our team.”
I kept my eyes on the printed email. I could almost hear Ranata’s voice in the phrase “family point of contact”—smooth, reasonable, familiar. For years, I had mistaken her confidence for proof that she knew what she was doing. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.
“Did the company pay her?” I asked.
The buyer’s counsel didn’t answer at once. She closed the first folder and opened another.
“We found a document that refers to proposed compensation. I want to be clear: what I have here does not establish that payment was made.”
My attorney’s pen stopped.
“Then let’s be precise about the document,” she said. “Who prepared it? Who signed it? What was the proposed service? And was it connected to the purchase agreement?”
The company’s counsel slid a second page across the table but kept one hand on the top edge.
“This appears to be a separate compensation document. It refers to an introduction and the sharing of property information. It was not included in Ms. Mitchell’s purchase contract.”
I read the line beneath the heading. Ranata’s name appeared beside a description of “proposed introduction and site-information services.”
Proposed. The word was underlined nowhere, but I saw it as if someone had drawn a box around it.
“Was this payment made?” I asked.
“I can’t confirm that from the materials in front of me.”
“Then why show it to me?”
“Because you asked whether we had records of contact between Ranata and the company. This document appears to relate to that contact, and we thought you should know it existed. But we need to verify its scope and signatures before we characterize it further.”
My attorney turned the page toward herself.
“May we have a copy?”
“Not today. We need to review the document with the affiliate referenced in it.”
“Affiliate?” my attorney asked.
The buyer’s counsel studied the page, as though deciding how much she could safely say without guessing.
“This company has related entities that handle different parts of its development work. The document refers to one of them. We’re still checking which entity prepared it and whether it was executed.”
My mouth had gone dry. I reached for the water and took a small sip.
“Did Ranata tell your employee she had authority from me?”
“The email we have does not say that directly.”
“Did she suggest it?”
“I don’t want to draw a conclusion from a partial record.”
That answer was frustrating. It was also the first one I trusted.
My attorney closed her notepad.
“We’re not asking you to draw a conclusion. We’re asking you to preserve and produce the complete record through counsel. Until we have it, no one should treat this as proof of payment, authority, or an agreement binding Fay.”
The buyer’s counsel agreed. She said the company had no intention of confusing Ranata’s contact with my negotiations, and that its records showed the purchase documents had been handled with me and my representatives. She did not say the contact could have no consequence. She did not say the sale was beyond question. She only said the company would review the relevant files and respond through counsel.
It wasn’t reassurance. It was a careful boundary around what anyone could honestly claim.
I looked once more at the page. Ranata’s name sat beside words that made her contact sound professional, almost ordinary. The proposed service was vague enough to hide inside a sentence and specific enough to make me wonder what she had promised.
“Please preserve the original document and every version of it,” my attorney said. “Including anything sent to the affiliate.”
“We will.”
“And tell us if the affiliate has a signed copy.”
The buyer’s counsel paused.
“I can’t confirm that there is one.”
“Can you confirm there isn’t?”
“No.”
The room went still. My attorney looked at me, giving me space to decide whether I had anything else to ask. I had plenty. I wanted to know what Ranata had told them, what she expected in return, whether Desmond had helped, whether any money had changed hands. But none of those questions could be answered by staring harder at a page.
So I asked the one thing the document itself had left hanging.
“What happens next?”
“We check the records with the affiliate and confirm whether this document was executed,” the buyer’s counsel said. “Until then, I can only tell you what our copy shows.”
May you like
She turned the page back toward herself, her finger resting beside Ranata’s name.
“And our copy suggests the document may have been countersigned through an affiliate.”
