“Where did the difference go?”

“Arthur marked it as an equipment staging fee for the drywall lifts,” Brenda said, her voice dropping to a professional whisper.

“We supply the drywall lifts,” Nathaniel said.

His voice fell into the short, deliberate rhythm he used on job sites when a sill plate was out of plumb.

“We owned those electric scissor lifts before Arthur signed his framing contract.”

“It’s four hundred dollars on an eighty-thousand-dollar draw,” Brenda said gently.