Chapter 16 - What the Bank WantedThe lenders did not care who had insulted Zaya at lunch.
They cared about cash.
Two days after the board meeting, Travis sat across from representatives of three financial institutions, accompanied by independent restructuring attorney David Mercer.
David was not related to Ruth Mercer, though he had heard about her work in Alder Creek.
He was practical, direct, and entirely unimpressed by the Hartwell name.
"Your company cannot repay all its obligations on the present schedule," he told Travis before the meeting.
"I know."
"Then don't pretend otherwise. We need a credible plan, not a family history."
Travis nodded.
The largest lender held security interests in manufacturing equipment and several company-owned industrial parcels.
Other loans were backed by receivables and inventory.
Certain obligations were personally guaranteed by Evelyn.
The Reading House was not legitimate collateral for those loans.
That distinction mattered.
"Can the company survive?" Travis asked.
"Possibly. But it may not survive in its current form."
Travis looked down at the employee roster.
"How many jobs?"
"That depends on operating performance, lender cooperation, and which assets can be sold lawfully."
The meeting lasted nearly four hours.
There were difficult questions.
Why had the board received incomplete debt reports?
What consulting services justified hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments?
Why had a redevelopment proposal included charitable property?
Why had management delayed independent restructuring advice?
Travis answered what he knew.
When he didn't know, he said so.
It was a new experience.
His entire life, the Hartwell men had been expected to project certainty.
Arthur could charm his way through financial trouble.
Evelyn could intimidate people into believing the trouble was temporary.
Travis had inherited neither talent.
So he tried honesty.
"We made mistakes," he told the lenders. "Some may be more serious than mistakes. We're investigating them."
The lead bank officer watched him carefully.
"Why should we extend additional time?"
"Because a rushed sale to one buyer may recover less value than an organized process. And because the company still has profitable customer relationships."
David presented an operational forecast.
It required reducing certain product lines, selling unused industrial property, renegotiating supplier agreements, and finding new financing under independent oversight.
It was painful.
But it was a plan.
After further discussion, the lenders agreed to consider a limited standstill while their advisers reviewed the records.
They did not promise a rescue.
They imposed conditions.
Weekly cash reporting.
Restrictions on nonessential payments.
Independent monitoring.
And immediate disclosure of material related-party transactions.
Travis accepted the conditions.
He walked out of the meeting exhausted.
David followed him into the parking garage.
"You did better than most owners in your position."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"No. It's supposed to remind you that telling the truth early can preserve options."
Travis leaned against his car.
"My mother thinks admitting we're in trouble will destroy us."
David looked toward the concrete ceiling.
"Sometimes secrecy is what finishes the job."
Meanwhile, Rachel and Daniel continued reviewing the family investment company.
They obtained records through authorized requests and preservation procedures.
The accounting began to reveal a troubling pattern.
In 2024, $640,000 had been transferred to an account associated with transaction-support services.
Another $380,000 followed over the next year through smaller payments.
Additional charges appeared under consulting and property-development categories.
The payments totaled more than one million dollars.
Some may have paid for actual services.
Others lacked adequate supporting records.
The amount of any loss to the investment company, and the extent of the effect on Zaya's beneficial interest, still required forensic analysis.
Rachel refused to let the family treat every suspicious transaction as proven theft.
But the evidence was becoming harder to dismiss.
That evening, Travis met Zaya at the church gymnasium where the reading program had temporarily relocated.
She was helping a little boy build a tower from cardboard blocks.
When she saw her father, she smiled.
"Did you save everybody's jobs?"
Travis knelt beside her.
"Not yet."
"Will you?"
"I don't know."
Her smile faded.
He took her hand.
"I'm trying. But I don't want to promise something I may not be able to do."
Zaya considered this.
"Grandpa used to make a lot of promises."
"He did."
"Did he keep them?"
"Some. And he spent years trying to repair the ones he couldn't."
She leaned against his shoulder.
"Maybe that's what being grown up means."
"What?"
"Knowing which promises you can actually keep."
Travis kissed the top of her head.
Across the gym, Mrs. Parker approached with her telephone.
"Travis, something's happened."
She showed him a message from the Reading House's building security provider.
The alarm system had reported an unauthorized after-hours entry.
A maintenance door had been opened.
The alarm company had notified the designated property contacts, and the police had been called.
Travis called Rachel immediately.
Within an hour, he stood outside the Reading House with Mrs. Parker, a police officer, and a representative of the independent charitable trustee.
The rear door showed signs of forced entry.
Inside the archives room, several drawers had been opened.
Folders lay scattered across the floor.
The blue cabinet stood with its doors wide open.
Its contents had been disturbed.
Fortunately, Mrs. Parker had already placed the inventoried originals with secure archival storage under trustee-approved arrangements.
Most documents found in the cabinet were working copies.
But the intrusion was still serious.
One item was missing.
Arthur Hartwell's leather-bound notebook containing the original handwritten entries about the Reading House.
Travis stared at the empty shelf.
The officer began documenting the scene.
Rachel instructed everyone to avoid disturbing anything else.
Then she asked a question.
"Who knew that notebook was here?"
Travis looked toward the door.
He remembered Leonard Greer's expression when he first saw Zaya holding it.
May you like
And he realized that somebody was no longer content to argue over documents.
Somebody had started trying to make evidence disappear.
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