Chapter 11 - The Copy Samuel Kept
Samuel Price lived outside Madison, Wisconsin, in a one-story house surrounded by maple trees.
Marcus drove there with Leah two days later.
Samuel opened the door before they knocked.
He was eighty-one, thin, stooped and alert.
“You look like Leon,” he told Marcus.
“People say that.”
“They mean the eyes.”
Samuel invited them inside.
A dining-room table had already been covered with folders.
“I knew this day might come.”
Leah set a recorder on the table after Samuel consented.
“What exactly did you keep?”
Samuel smiled.
“Your father didn’t trust computers. Victor trusted them too much. I trusted photocopiers.”
He opened a folder.
Inside was a black-and-white copy of the entire 2009 purchase option.
Page one.
Page two.
Signature page.
The expiration clause read:
MARCH 31, 2011.
Marcus felt a pressure leave his chest.
Leah did not celebrate.
Lawyers rarely did before authentication.
“Where has this been stored?”
“In my client archive. Then my basement after retirement.”
“Has anyone altered or replaced it?”
“No.”
“Why did you keep it?”
“Professional habit.”
Samuel looked at Marcus.
“And because Leon was worried.”
“About Victor?”
“Yes.”
Samuel sat.
“In 2011, after the option expired, Victor called me.”
“What did he want?”
“To know whether I had retained copies.”
Marcus glanced at Leah.
“What did you tell him?”
“That accountants keep everything.”
Samuel chuckled.
“He didn’t like that.”
“When was this?”
“April or May.”
“Did he ask again later?”
Samuel’s expression changed.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“2018.”
Marcus’s stomach tightened.
The same year Madison stole the folio.
Samuel continued.
“Victor said he was cleaning up old records and asked whether I would send my copy.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“By then Leon was dead. Victor wasn’t my client. And something about the request bothered me.”
“Did he say why?”
“He said there might be an extension.”
“There wasn’t.”
“I told him I had no extension.”
“What did he say?”
Samuel looked toward the window.
“He said maybe Leon never gave it to me.”
Leah asked, “Did you ever see an extension running to 2031?”
“No.”
“Would you have expected to?”
“Yes. I prepared Leon’s property statements.”
Marcus leaned forward.
“Do you still have notes from Victor’s call?”
Samuel pulled out a spiral message pad.
Yellow paper.
Carbon copies.
One line dated August 6, 2018.
VICTOR COLE — asking re Reed option extension. Says Leon may have signed new term. Told him none in file.
Marcus almost stopped breathing.
Madison had taken the folio that summer.
Victor had been searching for competing copies at exactly the same time.
Leah photographed the note.
Then Samuel handed her another envelope.
“One more thing.”
Inside was a letter from Leon dated April 7, 2011.
Victor—
The option terminated March 31 under Section 4. Your loan has been repaid in full. You have no continuing purchase rights in the property.
Leon Reed
The letter bore Samuel’s office stamp.
“You had a copy.”
“Leon gave me one.”
Marcus looked at Samuel.
“My mother found the certified mail receipt.”
“Good.”
“What happened after Victor received it?”
“He stopped calling Leon for a while.”
“For a while?”
Samuel hesitated.
“About two years later, Victor offered to buy the shop.”
Marcus had never heard this.
“For how much?”
“Less than half what Leon believed the land was worth.”
“Did Dad refuse?”
“With language I won’t repeat in front of counsel.”
Leah almost smiled.
Samuel’s expression softened.
“Your father wasn’t a sophisticated man financially. But he knew when somebody wanted him desperate.”
Marcus looked at the old photocopy.
“Why didn’t he tell me all this?”
“You were building your company.”
“That never stopped him from giving advice.”
Samuel laughed.
“No. But it stopped him from giving you fear.”
The sentence hit Marcus quietly.
Leon had hidden debt.
Evelyn had hidden sacrifice.
Marcus had hidden hurt.
Everyone in the Reed family seemed to believe love meant protecting people through silence.
Silence had not protected them.
It had merely delayed the truth.
Leah’s phone buzzed.
She stepped away.
Samuel studied Marcus.
“I read about your company.”
“Good things?”
“Mostly words I don’t understand.”
Marcus smiled.
“Dad didn’t understand what we did either.”
“He understood you built something.”
Samuel looked toward the folders.
“He talked about that.”
“When?”
“Before he died.”
Marcus stared.
Samuel continued.
“He said you were going to become richer than everybody who ever made him feel poor.”
Marcus looked away.
He hated how deeply that sentence entered him.
Samuel added, “Then he said he hoped you wouldn’t become one of them.”
Marcus closed his eyes.
That sounded like Leon.
Leah returned.
“We have a problem.”
Marcus stood.
“What?”
“The court ordered expedited production this morning.”
“That’s expected.”
“Cole Meridian produced what it claims is the original option.”
Marcus looked at Samuel’s copy.
“Good. We can compare them.”
Leah’s expression remained tense.
“They also produced a sworn affidavit.”
“From who?”
Leah handed him her phone.
Madison Cole.
The affidavit was dated 2019.
In it Madison stated:
I have never possessed, removed, copied or transferred any original Reed family business records.
Marcus read the sentence twice.
Samuel watched his face.
“What is it?”
Marcus handed Leah back the phone.
Madison had admitted stealing the folio.
She had now given them evidence that Victor altered the option.
But seven years earlier she had sworn under oath that none of that happened.
Marcus looked toward the window.
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The case against Victor had grown stronger.
The case against Madison had just become more dangerous.
