Chapter 3 - The Woman at the Door
The county surveyors had not cut any trees when Skye arrived, but orange ribbons were tied around the orchard's oldest trunks. A bulldozer stood on the lower field. Mason's company had hired a landscape contractor to map a possible access road, and the foreman said he'd been told the ownership dispute was already settled.
Skye showed him Paige's letter and the recorded deed. She didn't try to order him off by force. The foreman stopped the survey work while he called his employer, and he asked Skye to communicate future objections through counsel. It wasn't the victory she wanted, but it bought them a morning.
Paige filed an action asking the court to clarify ownership and sought temporary relief against destructive work affecting the disputed interests. She warned that an emergency hearing would focus on evidence, immediate harm, and applicable legal standards, not simply on who seemed more sympathetic.
"The judge may require a bond or limit the order," she told Skye. "We need to be precise about which activities might permanently damage the property."
They documented the trees, drainage, access roads, and existing land uses with photographs and a licensed surveyor's report. Skye knew the contours from years of repairing fences, but she needed a professional map that could be tested if another expert disagreed.
June remembered the woman who brought the appraisal paper. "She wore a green scarf and said her name was Maren. She talked so fast I didn't get to ask about the second page."
Paige located a Maren Vale listed as acquisitions coordinator for Ridgegate Homes. The company's public website described her as experienced in negotiating family-owned land purchases. The headshot showed the same narrow face June remembered.
Skye wanted to call and demand an explanation. Paige recommended a written request for copies of every document Maren had presented, including appointment notes and records of any notarial act. The developer's attorney responded with a packet of scanned pages but said some internal files were confidential.
One page was titled CONSENT TO BOUNDARY EVALUATION. Another, bearing a similar date, was a PURCHASE AGREEMENT for the entire parcel. June remembered signing the first title but not seeing the second. The pages used different fonts and footer numbers, suggesting they might have come from separate document sets. That difference was suspicious but not conclusive.
Mason gave a statement to a local newspaper saying Ridgegate had proceeded in good faith after a professionally handled closing. He described the dispute as "a family disagreement about property planning." Skye hated how small the words made the situation sound.
At her carpentry workshop she tried to focus on restoring a century-old porch railing for a customer. She cut a board a quarter inch too short and had to buy new lumber. Her apprentice, Tori, asked whether she should take over the saw for the afternoon.
"I'm fine," Skye said, then stopped. "No, I'm distracted. You take it."
It was difficult to let someone else hold a tool she'd used since she was sixteen. It was more difficult to admit that losing concentration around machinery could hurt someone who trusted her.
At closing a woman waited beside Skye's truck. She wore a green scarf.
"I’m Maren," the woman said. "I know you want answers. Mason told me not to contact you, but I don't think the file tells the whole story."
Skye stayed near the workshop door and called Paige on speaker. Maren looked startled but didn't object.
"I met June for the appraisal," she said. "I left before any sale paperwork was signed. Someone put my notes in a file I didn't recognize."
"Who completed the sale?" Paige asked.
"An outside closing agent. But I saw a scan of June's signature on a later document. It came from a template folder, not from the appointment I attended."
Skye's hand tightened on the phone.
May you like
"Do you have that scan?"
Maren nodded. "And the email that told me to use it."
