“Then we have three weeks.”
A voice from doorway said:
“You’ll have less.”
Everyone turned.
Thomas stood beside a stranger.
Thin man.
About fifty.
Gray coat.
Spectacles.
His name was Edwin Pike.
Former Prescott bookkeeper.
He had worked mercantile sixteen years before being dismissed six months earlier.
Lena knew him by sight.
Pike removed hat.
“If Adeline’s father knows you’re organizing, he will call freight agent.”
“Why?”
Reid asked.
“To block your credit.”
The kitchen became quiet.
Lena studied him.
“Why are you here?”
Pike looked toward ledgers.
“Because you finally found what I should have exposed years ago.”
He placed a small black book on table.
Prescott’s second ledger.
Real one.
For years Nathaniel Prescott had maintained two sets of numbers.
One for merchants and auditors.
Another showing actual purchase prices, freight costs, and extra assessments imposed on ranchers.
Pike discovered.
He kept copies.
Then Adeline found him.
He was fired.
Threatened.
Lena turned pages.
Her hands became cold.
This was not sloppy bookkeeping.
It was deliberate.
Prescott purchased flour at one cost and billed ranchers at a higher legitimate markup.
Then added fictitious rail surcharges.
Charged freight twice.
Underreported weights on products purchased from ranchers.
Carried unpaid balances forward even after payment.
Used store credit to trap poorer families.
One column was labeled leverage.
Lena stared.
“What is this?”
Pike answered quietly:
“Amount owed compared with land value.”
Reid’s face hardened.
“Why?”
“When a customer fell far enough behind, Prescott offered consolidation loan.”
“Secured by property.”
Eleanor Webb went pale.
“My husband signed one.”
Pike nodded.