Chapter 19: A Different Kind of Offer

Celeste sent an agent to my house on Monday morning.
The agent was a young woman named Paige Monroe who seemed uncomfortable delivering the message.
She said Celeste would withdraw the current permit application if I signed a temporary access license allowing equipment across the meadow.
The license would last two years and could be renewed with mutual consent.
I asked to see the written terms.
Paige gave me a draft.
A provision near the end allowed the company to improve, widen, and maintain the route at its discretion during the license term.


Another provision made the improvements the company’s property.
I read both paragraphs twice.
“This isn’t temporary walking access,” I said.
“It’s construction permission.”
Paige looked relieved that I had noticed.
“I’m not authorized to interpret the language,” she replied.
“Then tell Celeste I won’t sign.”
Paige hesitated at the porch steps.
“My firm wasn’t told there was a dispute about the culvert,” she said.
“You should ask your client about it,” I answered.
She nodded and walked away.
Maya reviewed the draft that afternoon.
She said the document could place me in a far worse position than the original purchase offer.


“Once they build a road, undoing it becomes expensive and contentious,” she explained.
“The word temporary in the title doesn’t prevent that.”
I put the document with the others.
Then I called Katherine and told her Celeste was still trying to obtain access without resolving the trust’s concerns.
Katherine said she would write directly to the county.

Chapter 20: The Last Straw at the Pump House

The fourth attack happened in daylight.
I was repairing a hinge near the north barn when I heard glass break behind the pump house.
I ran toward the sound and saw a man climbing over the fence.


He wore a dark sweatshirt and carried a tool bag.
By the time I reached the corner, he was running toward the service road.
I did not chase him beyond the gate.
Instead, I called Owen and described what I had seen.
The pump house window was broken, and the control cabinet had been forced open.
The equipment itself remained intact, but several wires had been pulled loose from their terminals.
A camera above the barn had recorded the intruder approaching the building.
Its image showed a narrow beard and a pale mark near the man’s chin.
Owen watched the footage without speaking.


“That may give us a better identification than the other images,” he said.
Later that afternoon, he returned with another deputy to collect the camera file and photograph the cabinet.
He told me Mason Vale had agreed to an interview.
I asked whether Mason was under arrest.
“No,” Owen answered.
“We’re checking the evidence before deciding what it supports.”
I was frustrated, but I knew he was right.
I had spent months wanting the police to see what I saw.
Now that they were gathering information, I had to accept that proof required more than certainty in my own mind.