Sandra calledat four that afternoon.
I’d spent the day in a fog, answering emails, handling a supply delivery, pretending the morning hadn’t hollowed me out. Graham had kept his distance, working with Hank. Denise had texted twice with updates: all access codes changed, systems locked down, sheriff’s office contacted.
Efficient. Exactly what I needed.
When Sandra’s name lit up my phone and the floor dropped out again.
“Rose, there’s another problem.” No preamble. “Your liability insurance lapsed. Three months ago.”
I sat down slowly. “That’s not possible. The premiums are on auto-renewal.”
“They were. But the auto-pay was routed through the same digital payment system Taylor managed. After the last premium payment was denied, the policy lapsed. You’ve been operating without liability coverage for ninety days.”
Ninety days. Three months of guests on my property, riding my horses, sleeping in my cabins, with no insurance. If anyone had been hurt. If a horse had spooked. If a guest had fallen on a trail ride.
“What does this mean?” I asked, though I already knew.
“It means you need to reinstate immediately, which will cost significantly more than the original premium because you’ll be flagged as a lapse risk. And it means if your lender finds out you’ve been operating without coverage, they can trigger the review clause in your loan agreement.”
“How much to reinstate?”
Sandra told me.
I closed my eyes.
Denise appearedin the office doorway ten minutes later. She must have seen something on my face, because she came in and closed the door.
“What happened?”
“Insurance lapsed,” I said. “Three months of no coverage.”
Denise’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh God. The auto-renewals?—”
“Went through Taylor’s payment system. Same one he used for everything else.”
Denise closed her eyes. When she opened them, she looked sick. “Of course. If he was diverting payments, the insurance premiums would have been redirected right along with everything else. It was all running through the same pipeline.” She pressed her palms against her temples. “Rose, I should have caught this. The renewal confirmations come to my email. I should have noticed when they stopped.”
“You had no reason to check,” I said. “It was automated.”
“I still should have?—”
“You didn’t know.” The same words I’d said earlier. They were starting to feel hollow, but I didn’t have the energy to examine why. “None of us knew.”
Denise sat beside me. “How bad is it?”
I told her about the reinstatement cost. About the review clause. About what the bank could do if they found out.
She listened. Nodded. Squeezed my hand.
“We’ll figure it out,” she said. “We always do.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
GRAHAM
The first photographershowed up the next day.
I spotted him from the barn. A man in a gray jacket leaning against a rental car parked just beyond the property gate, long lens pointed at the main house. He wasn’t hiding. Didn’t need to. The county road was public land. He could stand there all day and there wasn’t a thing we could do about it.
