Chapter 21: Served

Mitch's POV

The man in the gray overcoat stopped in front of Trent Whiting.

He asked for him by his full name.

"That's me," Trent said.

"You've been served."

He held out the envelope, and Trent looked at it and did not take it.

The man put it against Trent's chest, and Trent's hand closed on it by reflex.

Everyone on the floor was watching.

Sixty people were watching, and the auctioneer, and the woman from the bank.

The reporter was watching, and so was Marge.

Trent tore it open.

His eyes went down the first page, and the second.

I watched his lips move on a number.

"This is the bank," he said. "It's a civil complaint. This is a joke."

"It's not," the bank's representative said.

"Against me. Personally."

"For the lease guarantee on the vehicle you drove in here," she said.

"And for eleven charges to the company card, ninety-one thousand dollars in all."

"And?"

"And for the signature."

"What signature?"

"Your mother's. On the guarantee."

The silence stretched.

"Your mother says she did not sign it," the young woman said. "We asked her last week."

Trent turned his head slowly.

Joan was standing by the wall with her hands folded.

"Mom," he said.

She did not move.

"Mom. Tell them."

"Tell them what, Trent?"

"That you told me to sign the guarantee. You said I'll back you."

"I never said that."

"You said we needed the car for the Callow meeting."