"The check," I say slowly, "is for triple what we quoted them."
Maya's eyes go wide. "They what?"
"They tripled the payment." I turn the check toward her so she can see the figure herself, still not quite believing it's real.
Maya grabs the check. Stares at it. Looks at me with something like awe.
"This covers the debt," she says. "All of it. Plus operating budget for three months."
"We're solvent."
"We're more than solvent. We're actually okay."
The temps finish plating desserts. We load the van. Drive back to Pine Hollow in exhausted, triumphant silence.
It's past midnight when we pull up to the bistro. Maya goes straight to bed. I sit in the kitchen with the check and a beer and the overwhelming sense that something just shifted.
We did it. We survived.
The front door rattles. I get up to check the lock.
There's a note wedged in the gap. Plain paper, no envelope.
I open it.
Developers have eyes. Don't make decisions in a hurry.
I read it again. The handwriting is unfamiliar. The paper is generic. No signature, no context.
Just a warning from someone who knows something I don't.
I pocket the note. Lock the door. Stand in the dark kitchen trying to figure out what it means.
The check in my hand suddenly feels heavier.
CHAPTER 8
IVY
Farmer Hank's pickup sits crooked in the driveway, one tire half on the gravel, like he parked in a hurry and never bothered to fix it. The barn door hangs open. Inside, I can hear him moving around, the scrape of metal on concrete.
I knock on the doorframe anyway.
"Hank?"
"Come on in, Ivy."
He's kneeling beside a rusted tiller, wrench in hand, grease up to his elbows. The barn smells like old hay and diesel and the particular kind of dust that only comes from decades of use.
"Got a minute?" I ask.
"Got several." He doesn't look up. "Transmission's shot anyway. Won't be tilling till I can afford the part."
I crouch beside him. Study the tiller's broken housing. The crack runs deep.
"How much is the part?"
"Four hundred." He wipes his forehead with the back of his wrist. "Might as well be four thousand."
