Chapter 6 - Shadows on the Ledger
The silence that settled over the grand study after Mara slammed the door was very different from the tension of the previous days. It was heavy, weighted with the knowledge that the reprieve bought by Silas Calder's old diary was only temporary. Thursday morning was looming less than forty-eight hours away, and the board of directors would not be easily dismissed by a single unfiled legal revision.
Trace stood by the window, watching the carriage bearing Mr. Vance and Sheriff Miller disappear down the long timber-lined drive until it vanished into the gathering dusk. His broad shoulders were tense, the muscles working beneath his dark wool shirt.
Ria remained seated at the heavy mahogany desk, the open pages of Silas Calder's leather-bound journal resting beneath her fingertips. The fading light from the tall windows caught the silver lettering on the spine.
"She won't stop with Vance," Ria said quietly, breaking the silence. "The lawyer was just her instrument. If the unfiled revision can be challenged, or if they find another loophole in the incorporation charter, they will bring a harsher weapon to the table on Thursday."
Trace turned away from the glass, his footsteps muffled by the thick Persian rug as he walked over to the desk. He pulled up a leather armchair and sat down directly across from her, his expression grim.
"Mara has spent twenty years cultivating relationships with every major timber broker and territorial judge between here and Santa Fe," Trace said, his voice low. "She thinks this ranch belongs to a dynasty of blood and ink, not to a man who decided to marry an Apache woman from Dust Hollow."
"She thinks I am an intruder who can be legally erased," Ria replied, her dark eyes flashing with cold resolve. "Which means she hasn't looked at the actual ledgers. She has looked only at what Vance prepared for her."
Trace leaned forward, resting his forearms on the edge of the desk. "What do you mean?"
"When you were showing me the library yesterday, I noticed the record books for the northern logging camps," Ria explained, her finger tapping the corner of the journal. "Vance claimed the estate's financial stability depends entirely on the board's emergency funding. But according to these pages, the northern camps have been operating on a surplus for three consecutive quarters. The money Mara claims we owe the corporate trust doesn't exist on these balance sheets."
Trace stared at her, astonishment flickering through his exhaustion. "You read the timber yields?"
"My father taught me how to count bags of seed when there were barely enough seeds to fill one," Ria said simply. "Numbers don't lie, Trace. People do. Mr. Vance lied about the revision, and Mara is lying about the solvency of the estate to make the board panic."
Trace reached across the desk, his calloused fingers wrapping firmly over her hand. The touch was grounding, steady, and entirely free of the hesitation that had marked their first days together.
"We need to find the actual ledger from the 1884 audit," Trace said, his mind shifting into strategic gear. "The one my father locked in the lower office safe before he died. If that document is intact, it proves Mara's faction has been siphoning operational funds into private accounts to manufacture this exact crisis."
May you like
Ria gripped his hand back, her fingers locking with his. "Then we go down to the mill office tonight. Before the board meets. Before they can fabricate another writ."
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