Chapter 8 - The Notary Stamp
Harlan Pike chose a church parking lot in Helena.
Not inside the church.
The parking lot.
At 6:30 the next morning.
Leah hated everything about it.
Sheriff Talley hated it more.
So this time I did not go alone.
Talley followed in an unmarked county truck.
Cole rode with me.
We spent most of the drive in silence.
At one point he said, “You know Dad always told me you left because you thought you were better than us.”
I kept my eyes on the road.
“What did you think?”
“I thought maybe both things were true.”
That one landed.
I could have defended myself.
I didn’t.
Harlan Pike was seventy if he was a day, with a red nose, nicotine fingers, and an expensive overcoat that did not match the rusted Buick he leaned against.
He held a legal envelope.
No greeting.
No apology.
He handed it to me.
Inside was a letter in my mother’s handwriting.
I knew it instantly.
Not because of the words.
Because she dotted her i’s with tiny, hard taps, like she was mad at the paper.
Nora,
If you are reading this, I either lost my nerve or ran out of time.
I stopped.
Cole turned away.
The rest was worse.
Mom had discovered Dad had been moving money through one of her business accounts. Not stealing exactly, at least not at first. Borrowing. Covering losses. Replacing some funds, then borrowing again.
She bought land in Montana through Big Sky Agricultural Holdings because she needed one asset Dad could not touch.
Parcel A was not Juniper Ridge.
It was land beside it.
Forty acres of river frontage.
She intended it for me.
She called it “the ridge” because from that parcel you could see the same blue spine of mountains she had drawn in a sketch she kept over her desk.
I remembered the sketch.
I had it hanging in my ranch bedroom.
My knees nearly gave.
Cole grabbed my elbow.
Harlan looked at the ground.
“What lie did you notarize?” I asked.
He pulled a second paper from his coat.
A quitclaim deed.
My mother’s name was on it.
Transferring Big Sky Agricultural Holdings to Wade Mercer.
Dated nineteen days after her death.
I stared.
“You notarized a dead woman’s signature?”
His jaw worked.
“Yes.”
Cole whispered, “Jesus.”
Harlan looked older all at once.
“Your father said the document had been signed before she passed. Said she’d forgotten to notarize it. I knew that was improper. I did it anyway.”
“For money?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
He met my eyes.
“Because I owed him.”
Not better.
Somehow worse.
“What happened to the land?”
“Wade sold it.”
My stomach turned.
“To who?”
Harlan shook his head.
“He didn’t.”
“You just said—”
“He sold the company.”
I went still.
“Who bought Big Sky Agricultural Holdings?”
Harlan looked toward Cole.
Then back at me.
“Your brother.”
Cole stared at him.
“What?”
Harlan nodded.
“When you were nineteen.”
Cole took one step backward.
“I was in college.”
“You signed formation papers for three companies that summer.”
“My dad said they were tax entities.”
Harlan’s face tightened.
“They were.”
“For what?”
“For hiding ownership.”
Cole looked like he might be sick.
I opened my mouth.
Before I could speak, Sheriff Talley’s radio cracked from the truck twenty yards away.
He stepped out.
“Nora.”
Something in his tone stopped me.
“We just got a call from your ranch.”
My chest tightened.
“What happened?”
“Your alarm tripped.”
I reached for my phone.
No camera feed.
No signal from the house.
Talley continued.
“And the responding deputy found your front door open.”
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