Austin’s voice carried up the stairs, along with his heavy booted steps.
“Yep—but wait until you see what I found.”
“Ooh, that sounds ominous.” He appeared in the doorway, hat tilted back, eyes narrowing at the open boxes. “Looks like you found treasure.”
“Well, close. Look at this.” I handed him the notebook and an old coin from the bag.
He took them carefully, flipping through the ledger pages. “Her handwriting’s steady till here,” he said, pointing near the end. “Then it shakes. She must’ve written this close to the end. After she got sick.”
“She names Harold.” My voice was small.
He grunted. “Your uncle does have a…” He paused, searching for the right word, “colorful history.”
“Apparently, he was also her saboteur. Or at least she thought he was.” I rubbed my palms on my jeans. “She wrote Arnie too. Maybe she realized he was an errand boy or more.”
Austin scanned farther, lips pressed together. “She was documenting thefts, false invoices. It’s not paranoia—it’s evidence.”
The wordevidencesounded so final.
“What do we do with it?” I asked.
“Two things.” He closed the notebook and tucked it inside his jacket. “One, we call Browne in the morning and tell him exactly what you found. Two, we start rebuilding this barn like it’s meant to last another hundred years. You make it the clinic you want. I’ll make sure no one interferes.”
He steadied me.
“You think Penny wanted us to find this?” I said absent-mindedly, taking more papers out of the box.
“I think she left you the truth because she trusted you’d do something with it.”
He might have been right, but I didn’t want to think about it right now. “We should take this in the house and go through it later. I need to get back to the clinic downstairs.”
We climbed down together, Austin with the box and me with the broom. On the ground, Inspector batted the runaway penny in lazy circles until it vanished under a feed bin. I fished it out. “A Chinese coin?” I wondered aloud.
“At one of the charity events I met Penny at,” Austin grinned, “she was talking about her trip to China when she was in her twenties. She was interesting.” He mused.
Austin leaned against the stall rail, notebook still in hand. “You realize what this means, right? Harold’s not just lurking—he’s probably been angling for this place since the will was read.”
“Then he’ll be disappointed,” I said. “Because we’re not giving him anything.”
He smiled, faint but proud. “We?”
I nodded and flipped my rag at him.
The more we worked, the less the barn felt like a dusty storage unit. Mid-day light poured through the upper windows, catching on the newly uncovered counters and old shipping wrap.
I crossed to the metal sign leaning against the wall and brushed off another layer of dust. “This is going to be epic,” I said through giggles of excitement.
Austin pushed off the rail. “What’s the plan, Doc?”
“First we clear everything that isn’t alive or nailed down. Then we scrub. Then we paint.”
“Paint I can handle.” He rolled up his sleeves automatically. “But I’m claiming immunity from floral colors.”
“I make no promises,” I said, handing him a broom.
We worked until the last bit of daylight gleamed through the mountains. The rhythm of it steadied me—the scrape of wood, the thud of old boxes hitting the wagon bed, the softshuffle of hay underfoot. Every now and then, Austin would toss something he found into my area, and I would sweep my dirt into his. It was a game of wills. He won.
By the time we stopped, the two aisles on either side of the barn were completely open for the first time in years. We made some real progress.
