Nora pressed the corner of the page flat against the table with her palm.

“He isn’t rich at all, David, he’s drowning,” Nora said.

I stared at the black figures.

Two hundred thousand dollars was a crushing debt for a regional logistics company with four idle rigs parked in a gravel lot.

“He needs something for collateral,” I said.

“He needs a clean asset guarantee to put in front of the bank’s loan officer by Friday morning,” Nora said.

“If he gets your back acre and adds it to his lot, his estate jumps four hundred thousand dollars in value on paper.”