Chapter 18: Insufficient Funds

Conrad's fist stopped an inch from my cheekbone.

Forty phones were pointed at the courthouse steps, and he saw every one of them.

Wyatt's hand closed around Conrad's wrist from behind my shoulder, and Joaquin stepped up on the other side.

"Go ahead," I said. "Finish it. They're all recording."

Conrad's arm shook once, and he lowered it.

He walked down the steps with his head down and got into his car.

The video had two million views by dinner.

On Saturday, the first of November, I climbed the steps of the manor at nine in the morning with our lawyer on my left and Wyatt on my right.

Rent was due on the first.

I had written it into every lease myself.

Conrad opened the front door in a rumpled shirt.

Behind him in the hall stood Lillian, in navy, and past the gate three neighbors from the next vineyard had stopped their trucks to watch.

"Good morning," I said. "It's the first."

"You can't just show up here."

"It's my house, and it's the first. Thirty-eight thousand dollars."

He pulled a check from his breast pocket and held it out between two fingers.

I took it and turned it over.

A red stamp ran across the back, from the bank: returned, insufficient funds.

"It bounced," I said, loud enough for the gate to hear. "Before you hand me another one, the bank should know the account is frozen."

"The bank made an error."

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