I kept thinking of that squeeze while I sat in the new hotel room. At what point, I wondered, had she decided to offer affection that she no longer felt? Was she practicing a lie, or had part of her still wished the trip could be what she'd promised? I had no way to know. The only thing I knew with certainty was that she had arranged for my father's things to be removed while I was asleep hundreds of miles away.
At 1:16 a.m., Nora sent photographs from the workshop. A dark transport truck occupied the loading alley. Two police vehicles were parked nearby, and men in work clothes stood beneath the security light. The three tall cabinets were still visible through the open loading doors, which meant the people loading them had been stopped before everything disappeared. In one image, a heavy blanket covered a shape I knew was the arched reading table.
Under the images, Nora wrote, They are checking the paperwork. Colin says Tessa told him you approved everything. Adrian is still here. I'll call after I speak with the officer.
I saved the images and opened my cloud storage account. I found the deed and ownership records for the workshop, Dad's estate distribution documents, the original library purchase documentation, the most recent inventory, and the insurance appraisal. Then I sent copies to Nora and gave her permission to share them with the responding officers. For the first time in my life, my father's habit of keeping too many records felt like a gift rather than an inconvenience.
I remembered him standing at the old file cabinet while I complained that he never threw anything away. "A man can forget what he said ten years ago," he told me, "but the paper won't." I hadn't appreciated the wisdom then. Now it was the only thing keeping another person's paper from becoming the official version of my consent.
Nora called again at 1:38. The loading had stopped, but the officers were treating the situation carefully because Colin had produced a signed release and the transport company had a formal collection order. They weren't going to declare a crime on the basis of a late-night telephone conversation alone. The supervisor had agreed to leave the disputed property where it was until the owner and the company's legal department could establish the authorization, and the officers had documented who was present and what had already been moved.
"The pieces are all here?" I asked.
"I think so. Malik's driving over to help me check. There's something else, Daniel."
I closed my eyes. "What?"
"Colin says he was told this was part of an arrangement to pay off a loan. He thinks you agreed to it."
"What loan?"
"He wouldn't say. He just kept repeating that Tessa had the documents."
I sat up. The workshop carried a modest business loan, which I paid on schedule. There was no creditor entitled to collect Dad's furniture in the middle of the night. If Tessa had introduced some other debt, it would be the first I'd heard of it. I asked Nora to keep the statements factual and avoid arguing with Colin until we knew more.
"I'm so angry I can barely look at him," she said.