Page 116 of The Lonely Road

The original decree.

The statutory language from 1971.

The gap laid out with surgical clarity—fourteen days, twenty-one required—and the north pasture coverage described with the exact technical framing I developed in my private case analysis.

This is not opposing counsel’s framing. It’s mine.

Only one person knew about this until one evening, not long ago, when I asked another to check on it.

I hear my voice—even, professional, recognizable as mine—requesting a brief recess to review the submission.

I hear Colbeck grant it.

I hear my own footsteps.

The hallway outside Room 214 is beige.

Linoleum floor, the institutional beige of every public building in Colorado built between 1970 and 1995.

A water fountain at the end.

A bulletin board with bar association notices.

A window that looks out over Palmer Street, where someone is parallel parking a pickup truck with the laborious patience of a person who doesn’t do it often.

I stand with my back against the wall, the document clutched in my hands.

My knees feel weak, threatening to give way under the weight of a betrayal I didn’t see coming. Me—boss lady lawyer—never suspected that Mason Brooks was in Wildflower Canyon to get to me.

To get to my case.

Now I know he’s the reason they got the Tom Reyes information so quickly. He was at Jeb’s office—he told me what a mess the files were. That’s where he found it, because Jeb Junior would not have handed it over willingly.

Jeb Junior is smarter than that.

Smarter than me, apparently.

I look at the beige wall.

The parallel parker on Palmer Street has given up and pulled into a different space.

I take a deep breath and go back into the hearing room.

I do my job.

Colbeck looks at both tables. “Before we proceed, I have a procedural question for plaintiff’s counsel. The publication defect identified in this submission—can you speak to the discovery of this material and the chain of custody from source to filing?”

Aldridge rises without hesitation. “Your Honor, the documentation was obtained through a routine review of public records held at the Delta County Clerk’s Office. The original publication notices for the 1971 supplemental decree filing are a matter of public record, accessible to any party conducting diligent pre-litigation research. Plaintiff’s counsel conducted that research in the ordinary course of case preparation.”

Colbeck makes a note. “Defendant’s counsel. Do you wish to be heard on the provenance question?”

Aldridge’s framing was clean, practiced, and entirely plausible. Every word of it is defensible.

Every word of it was built on stolen work.

And I cannot prove a word of it.

“Your Honor, defendant does not dispute that publication records are public documents.”