Warren arrived carrying the certified letter, photographs of the drainage outlet, Casey's notebook, and enough anger to make every paper feel heavier.
"I want to stop them," he said.
Harlon took off his glasses. "From foreclosing or from flooding?"
"Both."
"Different fights."
"Same people."
"Maybe."
Warren slapped the letter lightly with two fingers. "Gerald told me to prove it."
"Then let's do that instead of getting mad at the invitation."
Harlon explained the problem in pieces. The bank had a contractual right to protect its loan if Warren failed the financial conditions. Challenging that process would require showing either compliance, an acceptable cure, or a legal reason the bank's conduct affected its right to enforce. Separately, the drainage issue could support claims if evidence showed that upstream modifications had caused unreasonable or unlawful diversion of water onto Warren's property.
"But causation matters," Harlon said. "Not just sequence. I need someone who can tell me what the drainage did, not what we think somebody hoped it would do."
"And if they did hope it would make me sell?"
"Then I want that in writing before I say it in public."
"Nobody writes that down."
Harlon raised one eyebrow. "People write down more than you'd think. They just use nicer words."
Two days later, Renata Cho drove onto the farm in a dusty white utility vehicle with survey equipment in the back and a yellow field book clipped under one arm. She was an independent hydrologist who had worked on agricultural drainage, floodplain restoration, municipal stormwater systems, and litigation where people disagreed passionately about where water had come from. She was younger than Warren expected, perhaps in her mid-forties, but within twenty minutes he stopped thinking about her age because she asked better questions than anyone else who had visited.
She began with history.
"Where did water go before the project?"
Warren pointed.
"Show me."
He did.
"Where did this ditch connect thirty years ago?"
He showed her.
"What work did your father do here?"
Warren described old grading, a shallow diversion, and a culvert replacement after a washout.
"Do you have photographs?"