I leaned back in the wooden chair, my hands folded tight over Arvid’s green canvas ledger in my lap.

“Brad has no authority to sign a lease on my eighty acres,” I said.

“No, he doesn’t,” Patricia said.

“Which means if Kurt’s got a signed lease in his vest right now, there are only two names that could be on the bottom line.”

“Brad’s own name,” I said.

“Or else yours,” Patricia said.

She leaned forward and set her elbows on the desk.

“If Brad signed his own name to a lease on land he doesn’t own, that’s civil fraud,” Patricia said.