“Okay then,” I say, taking a drink before setting my cup down as well. “What’s the point?”
“I need to write the bank a check for the sixty thousand dollars I got paid for my art last night. And yes, that sucks in some ways, but in another it doesn’t. My art allows me to get out of this mess.”
I move to sit on the coffee table in front of her, not quite ready to spark the anger sure to follow once she learns that I’ve paid off that note. “That money won’t save the winery.”
She pales instantly. “Oh God. Did I already lose the winery? Did the bank already take it?”
“Of course not,” I say, my hands settling on her knees. “I’m your attorney, remember?”
“I know that, but you weren’t until a few days ago.”
“I’m your attorney,” I repeat, “and I’m not going to let that happen.”
“But why would you even have to fight the bank at all at this point? The money should be the end of the bank’s involvement in my affairs. They can’t hold up probate if the debt is up to date. Right?”
“Correct,” I say. “Based on the documents that you’ve shown me.”
“Implying there’s something I haven’t shown you?”
“Easy, sweetheart,” I say softly. “Implying there’s more that you don’t have.”
“Wouldn’t they have to give that to my attorney?”
“Yes. But your attorney has to be smart enough to ask for everything, rather than assume he has it. And since I’ve talked to the bank and they’re playing hardball, they could be bluffing, but they didn’t back off when they heard my name. Thus why I’m of the strong opinion that your father, or your mother, signed documents that gives the bank rights that I don’t know they have. Any idea what that document might be?”
“None. No idea. That would have required trust and communication from my mother I simply never had.” Bitterness etches her tone, cold in that way that tells me the chill didn’t happen overnight, but then, I knew that already. “But regardless of what legal document was signed,” she adds, “what’s the end game here? If I sold the winery, the net after that note, and all debt, would be seven to eight million. I know that’s a lot of money, but enough for the bank to go to this much trouble?”
“It’s not a lot of trouble to intimidate you into handing it over, and when you have a limp-dicked attorney allowing it to happen.”
“Nick!”
“I tell it like it is, sweetheart. If you haven’t gotten that by now, it’s time to wake up and see the Tiger roaring in your face.”
“Frank is not a limp-dicked attorney. He’s just old.”
I arch a brow. “And your point? Or was that my point you were making?”
“I assume your point is you’re not him.”
“No one knows that better than you, sweetheart,” I say, handing her the coffee and preparing her for what comes next. “Drink.”
She holds up a hand. “No. I need to know what’s happening here. If the bank takes us to court, then you just do your Tiger routine, rip their throat out, and it’s over, right?”
“They want to have the property evaluated.”
“What? Why? Can they do that, and again,why?”
“That crop destruction you had last year could lead them to believe the value is now below that of the note.”
“That’s simply not the case,” she says. “I don’t believe that. I hope not. But let’s just say it is—then what? Does that allow them to call the note due in full?”
“Not according to the documents I’ve seen and read.”
“But we think there are other documents,” she supplies, following where I’ve been leading.
“Exactly,” I say. “And again. They could very well be bluffing, but we just won’t know until they choose to show their hand or until we get to court. But the good news here is that my involvement alone tells them that they can’t push you into a rash decision.”
“And the bad?”