Chapter 5 - The Ashes of the Audit
The back room of Harper Auto Repair smelled of motor oil, damp cardboard, and decades of trapped dust.
In the far corner, beneath three stacked tractor tires, sat a heavy, green metal filing cabinet secured with a rusty padlock. Harper handed Alice a small brass key without saying a word, then walked back to the front of the shop, leaving her alone in the dim light of a single hanging bulb.
Alice fitted the key into the lock. It turned with a stiff, metallic click.
She pulled open the top drawer.
Inside were dozen of leather-bound accounting ledgers, their spines stamped in gold leaf with the name Mercer Timber & Supply Co.
She pulled out the last ledger—dated the year of her father's death—and carried it to a wooden workbench. She opened the cover.
The handwriting on the first page belonged to Martha Miller: crisp, neat, copperplate script listing daily shipments of oak, pine, and cedar.
As Alice flipped through the pages, the handwriting shifted. On the entries for the final three months, her father’s handwriting appeared—bolder, messier, penned in dark blue ink.
He had been conducting his own internal audit.
Beside dozens of timber sales to Vaughn Construction, Arthur Mercer had drawn thick red exclamation points. Notes were scribbled in the margins in her father's familiar, hurried hand:
Discrepancy: 40,000 board-feet delivered to Site B. No payment recorded. Walter claims invoice cleared. Bank statement shows zero deposit. Inquiry sent to County Assessor regarding bypass survey map.
Alice felt her pulse racing. Her father hadn't just been refusing to sell his land; he had discovered that Walter Vaughn had been stealing lumber from the yard for months to build the foundations of his own commercial developments in Bellmont.
Arthur Mercer was about to file criminal fraud charges against Walter Vaughn the very week he died.
Tucked between the last two pages of the ledger was a sealed white envelope.
On the front, written in her father's dark blue ink, were four words:
For my daughter, Alice.
Alice’s hands began to shake violently. She touched the yellowed paper, feeling the crisp, thick parchment inside.
She carefully tore open the top edge.
Inside was a letter, dated three days before the fire, accompanied by a folded blueprint bearing the official seal of the Bellmont County Highway Department.
My dearest Alice,
If you are reading this, it means I was right to be afraid. Walter came to the office again today. He did not threaten me with words, but a man who brings two silent companions to a business meeting is not a man looking for a compromise.
He wants this land, Alice. He wants the riverfront because he knows the state bypass will be built here in five years. But this yard belongs to us. It was your grandfather's, and it will be yours when you are old enough to understand what it means to build something with your own hands.
I have hidden the duplicate deeds and the bank transfer receipts in the floor safe beneath the kiln office desk. If anything happens to me, give this letter to Judge Sterling in Bellmont. He is an honest man.
Do not let them take what is yours.
I love you more than the sky.
Dad.
A single tear hit the page, spreading the blue ink of her father's signature into a tiny blue star.
Alice folded the letter carefully, tucked it into her jacket pocket along with the ledger, and stood up from the workbench.
She walked out into the bright sunshine of the auto repair yard.
May you like
A dark charcoal pickup truck was parked outside the gate.
Roger was standing beside it, his hands jammed deep into his pockets, his shadow stretching long and dark across the gravel toward her.
