Page 100 of The Lonely Road

She can’t understand, can she, how fucking scared I am? Hell, I don’t understand it either but the thought of her being in her office instead of Mac is unbearable.

I lean down and put my hands on her shoulders. “Sweetheart, you have to be safe.”

She swallows.

“What?”

She pulls away from me and shakes her head. “I don’t keep everything in my office.”

I straighten. “What does that mean?”

“They were looking for something specific.” She stares at her wine glass. “The Whitman files. They went through the north valley properties first, which means they had a shortlist. They knew roughly where to look.” She pauses. “Which means they knew roughly what they were looking for.”

I stand on the other side of the counter, across from her. I don’t say anything.

She worries her lower lip with her teeth. “I…found something last week at the County Clerk’s office. I wasn’t looking for it. Even Clara doesn’t know about it. I’ve…barely processed it myself.”

“What?”

She lets out a long breath. “I found it by accident.”

My heart hammers in my chest. “What did you find, sweetheart?”

“It’s a supplemental decree from 1971—those documents are all on microfiche. You have to go to the courthouse, request the reader, and go through them by hand. I was just doing due diligence, trying to find something to strengthen our case.” She holds my gaze. “But what I found could tank it.”

I wait.

She’s telling me something she hasn’t told anyone—and I’m the last person she should be confiding in. But whatever this is could save Taya—it could get Jessup off her.

But that will mean she loses the case—Clara loses her farm.

“Procedural defect,” she continues. “The publication notice ran for two weeks when the statute required three. The supplemental decree covering the north pasture is technically vulnerable. Not fatally—I’ve been thinking about how to address it—but if opposing counsel found it and deployed it correctly, combined with the Tom Reyes informal water use, which they somehow got their hands on, then….” She trails off. “It’s the thing I’m most worried about.”

“This supplemental decree—there’s just the copy you have?”

She nods. “There’s nothing in any public filing. The only copy of the decree with my annotations is here. I brought the microfiche print with me.”

I cross my arms because I want to reach out and shake her—explain that no ranch is worth her safety. These men are criminals—they have no problem hurting her to get what they want.

“I mean…if I found it, someone else may, right? I just need to keep it quiet until I’ve found the counterargument. The historical use records go back to 1948, and the right pre-dates the supplemental decree—if I can establish that the supplemental was codifying existing use rather than creating new rights, the procedural defect becomes less significant.” She regards me steadily. “But it takes time, and if they find the decree before I’ve shored it up⁠—”

Fuck it! I want her to win.

“Destroy it.”

She blinks at me, taken off guard.

“If there’s only one copy⁠—”

“Mason.” Her voice is gentle. “I can’t do that.”

“If nobody knows it exists⁠—”

“I know it exists. And destroying evidence that could be material to a proceeding—even evidence that hurts my own client—is obstruction. I’d lose my license.” She taps her fingers against the counter, thinking. “I won’t do that. I can’t build a case I’m proud of on top of something like that.”

Christ on a crutch! She means it. Of course, she means it. She is exactly who she has always been, and the fact that destroying one microfiche print would likely save the case, and she won’t do it because it’s wrong, is completely, entirely…her.

But I will know where the decree is. She’s going to tell me, and I’m going to do what I’ve already been building toward since the moment I saw her face in a badly-taken photograph in her file.