Chapter 10 - The Price of Proof
“Then we don’t give him the chance to get ahead of us,” I said.
My voice sounded steadier than my hands. I opened the ledger again, turned back to the first page, and began taking another set of photographs—one frame per page, corners visible, dates and parcel numbers sharp. No flash this time. The storage unit smelled of damp cardboard and old oil, and every sound from the service lane made Britta glance toward the door.
Mom sat beside the ledger with her sling tucked close to her ribs. She watched me work, her good hand resting on the red cover as if she could keep it from vanishing again.
“Where are you sending those?” she asked.
“To someone who can tell us what they’re worth. Not a promise. Just a chance to move faster.”
I scrolled through my contacts and called the independent title attorney Marlene had recommended. He answered on the fourth ring. I gave him the short version: the pending transfer, the handwritten entries, Daniel’s initials, the trust note, and the closing scheduled for that afternoon.
He didn’t interrupt until I finished.
“Send me the images,” he said. “I’ll look at them now.”
I did. The progress bar crept across the screen while the three of us watched it. Britta paced two steps toward the door, then stopped. The ledger remained under Mom’s hand.
When the attorney called back, I put him on speaker.
“The entries are concerning,” he said. “But handwritten notes and a ledger can’t authenticate themselves. They may support a challenge; they don’t establish the trust or prove who made a filing. We need recorded documents, certified copies, and people who can testify to what they know.”
Mom’s fingers tightened on the cover.
“Can these pictures stop the closing?” I asked.
“I can’t promise that. Not by themselves.” His pause was brief, but it landed hard. “If you have the certified trust instrument or the deeds, tell me where they are. I can contact the appropriate people, but I can’t make the originals appear.”
The attorney’s voice went quiet as he waited. Outside, a car passed the workshop without slowing. Britta followed its sound until it disappeared.
Mom looked at me. Her face had gone pale beneath the tiredness.
“Grandpa had a locked cabinet in the workshop,” she said. “The tall one against the back wall. He kept certified papers there. Deeds, trust records—anything he didn’t want handled casually.”
“You never mentioned that.”
“I thought it was empty after he died.” She swallowed. “Or I wanted to think it was. I didn’t go through everything.”
The workshop stood just beyond the storage units. We’d come close enough to see its weathered siding from the service lane, but not close enough to know whether the cabinet was still there—or what waited inside it.
“What kind of lock?” I asked.
“A small brass one. Your grandfather kept the key on his ring.” Her gaze dropped to the ledger. “The ring was missing after the funeral.”
So the cabinet might hold exactly what we needed. Or it might be another empty hiding place with a fresh scrape beside it.
“Can you come?” I asked the attorney.
“I can meet you there, but I can’t authenticate anything just by looking at it. Don’t alter, remove, or mark the documents. Photograph what you find, and call me before you make a move. I’ll start contacting the title office.”
His careful words did not sound like rescue. They sounded like a narrow path with danger on both sides.
“Thank you,” Mom said.
When the call ended, Britta leaned against the unit door. She had stopped pacing, but her hands wouldn’t stay still.
“I’ll go with you,” she said. “If I can help.”
Mom looked at her, and the silence between them seemed to occupy the whole cramped unit.
“You can help by telling the truth,” Mom said.
“I will.”
“That doesn’t erase the bat.”
“I know.”
Mom’s expression faltered. For an instant, I saw the old instinct to reach for her daughter and soothe the hurt she saw. She didn’t obey it. Britta lowered her eyes, accepting the space Mom left between them.
My phone vibrated in my palm.
The sender’s name turned my stomach cold: Daniel Krüger.
The message contained a photograph of Alder Street’s front door. Our mother’s blue wreath hung crooked against the paint. The image was close enough to show the brass numbers beside the frame, and the afternoon light across the porch made it recent.
Beneath it, Daniel had written: Bring me the ledger. I know about the workshop cabinet. Don’t make me come looking.
For a moment, none of us spoke. The engine of a truck started somewhere beyond the building, then fell silent.
Mom took the phone from me. Her eyes moved from the photograph to the message. I watched the fear reach her—not the fear of a bruise or a fracture, but the terrible understanding that Daniel had been close enough to learn what we were doing, or that someone had told him.
“He knows we’re going to the workshop,” she whispered.
Her good hand closed around the edge of her coat. Then she looked at me, and the fear in her face did not disappear. It simply stopped deciding for her.
“I’m frightened,” she said. “But I won’t let him make me hide from my own house again.”
She held out the phone. I took it, keeping the message open and the photograph exactly as it was.
May you like
“Then we go together,” I said.
Behind us, the red ledger lay open beneath Mom’s hand. Ahead, the workshop door waited—and Daniel knew we were coming.
