Margaret shoved the envelope through the gap beneath the chain.
“It’s all in there.”
I picked it up.
Heavy.
Maybe fifty pages.
Rachel opened the top.
Survey maps.
Emails.
Copies of
signatures.
A title-company letter.
Then one document made her stop breathing.
“What?” I asked.
She handed it to me.
It wasn’t an easement.
It was a purchase agreement.
Mercer Farm.Rural event promotion
All 612 acres.
Buyer:
North Valley Agricultural Services LLC.
Seller:
Jack Mercer.
Purchase price:
$4,200,000.
Closing date:
October 1.
Seventeen days away.
My forged signature appeared at the bottom.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was the line beneath it.
TITLE COMMITMENT APPROVED.
The sale wasn’t a proposal.
Someone had already opened escrow.
Someone had already ordered title insurance.
Someone had already scheduled closing on my farm.Rural event promotion
Rachel flipped to the final attachment.
Her face went completely still.
“What?”
She turned the page toward me.
There was a wire authorization.
Two million dollars had already been deposited into escrow.
Buyer’s earnest money.
Nonrefundable.
I looked at Margaret.
“Who owns North Valley?”
“That’s why I came.”
She glanced toward the road again.
Headlights appeared in the distance.
Fast.
Too fast for our gravel lane.
Margaret’s face drained of color.
“Lock the door.”
Rachel grabbed the envelope.
“Who owns the company?”
The headlights grew larger.
Margaret backed away from the window.
“Jack, North Valley isn’t owned by Trish Kessler.”
“Then who?”
The vehicle raced through my gate.
A black Suburban.
Another followed behind it.
Margaret whispered one sentence.
And for the first time since I had found strangers building a corn maze on my property, I genuinely forgot how to breathe.Corn maze tickets
“North Valley was created by your father.”
The first Suburban stopped outside the machine barn.
Doors opened.
Four men stepped out.
Margaret grabbed my sleeve.
“There’s one more thing.”
I looked at her.
Her eyes were fixed on the envelope in Rachel’s hands.
“Your father didn’t die owning Mercer Farm.”
A fist slammed against the locked
