I asked who owned the company. Derek shook his head. "I never got a straight answer. Raymond used to say the person behind it knew how to make old parcels disappear into new development plans."
That sentence lodged in my mind. I had bought a ranch because it was quiet, remote, and unwanted by anybody with enough money to fix it. Perhaps I had been wrong about the unwanted part. I thanked Derek, watched him return to his truck under the park lights, and sent Lena a photograph of the spreadsheet's final row. The words beside my name looked colder on the screen than they had on paper.
Lena's office was quiet the next morning except for the printer, which kept feeding out pages from Derek's scanned records. She had asked him to come with his own attorney, and he arrived carrying a small hard drive as well as the envelope he had shown me. I watched from a chair near the window while the lawyers discussed how to preserve the source files and identify which records Derek could authenticate. The distinction between a useful document and a document that could survive serious challenge was beginning to occupy more of my thoughts than the threats themselves.
The spreadsheet had seventeen rows, but not every row represented a successful collection. Several were marked refused, and two listed legal counsel retained. Seven showed money paid, partial settlement, or property transfer. The amounts on the ledger totaled somewhat more than $300,000 over six years, though some appeared to be internal projections rather than deposits. Lena wrote those categories on a notepad so I would not repeat the entire sum as money stolen before investigators had reconciled it with the bank records.
One email discussed my ranch by name. It was sent from Raymond to Christine thirteen days before closing and instructed her to approach the buyer immediately after the new deed appeared in the index. Another attached a template for the forty-eight-hour demand, with blank spaces for names, dates, and amounts. A third advised Greg to use personal vehicles rather than association equipment because it made the group less likely to attract municipal attention. I read that message twice, then looked at the photograph of the trucks blocking my gate.
The property list also included a column titled SHORE VALUE. Some entries were blank, while others carried numbers far larger than the alleged assessment balances. Morrison Ranch had a figure just under two million dollars, a value that bore no relation to the bankrupt property's appraisal or my purchase price. I asked Derek whether it represented a future sale. He said Raymond never explained it, but the number came from a development feasibility estimate prepared for an outside partner. He could not identify the author.
I drove to the local library to look at planning notices, not because I thought I could solve the entire mystery myself, but because property developers leave a public trail of proposed roads and hearings. In a back issue of a county business paper, I found an advertisement for Crescent Landing, a proposed resort and residential development along the eastern side of the lake. The promoter was Bellamy Lake Development, a company owned by a businessman named Gideon Bellamy. The advertisement showed expensive cabins, a boat launch, and a curved road descending toward a peninsula that looked strangely familiar.