Lana’s Story Part 18: Headlights at the Brooks Fence

Just finding Lana’s story? Read Part 17 here to catch up on Deke Pruitt’s forged deed, the out-of-county notary stamp, our farm flagged as “adjacent disputed acreage,” and the business card he left in Clay’s ransacked kitchen.

Last time, we stood in that ruined kitchen staring at a card that said he’d be by for the Brooks place next — and to bring the gray mare’s papers if we wanted to talk.

“He knew the phrase from Clay’s private letter,” I whispered. “And somehow, before any of us filed a single honest paper, Deke Pruitt had already decided our farm was next.”

We didn’t wait for morning. We drove straight home with the headlights off and the windows down, listening for engines that weren’t ours.

What We Found at Our Fence

The dirt road to our place looked the same until Royce slammed the brakes hard enough that Vera grabbed the dash. Fresh tire tracks cut through the soft shoulder and stopped at our north fence line — the same burn-scarred stretch Clay Kettering once fought over, the same parcel number sitting on Deke’s county amendment.

Someone had hammered a bright orange survey flag into the ground just inside our wire. No name on it. No permit number. Just a stake where it had no business being, and boot prints in the mud that led toward the barn and then back out again.

Royce knelt and touched the tread. “Same truck that sat empty at Pruitt’s metal building,” he said. “I’d swear on it.”

I ran for the barn with my heart in my throat. Raven was there — glossy, restless, snorting at the sudden light — and for one second I could breathe. Then I saw the tack-room door.

The lock had been forced. The little metal box where we kept Willow’s registration papers was open and empty.

Willow’s papers. The gray mare who’d vanished weeks ago. The exact thing Deke’s card said to bring.

“He already has them,” Vera said, white-faced. “Or he thinks making us panic is the point.”

The Carbon Copy Clay Hid

We almost tore the house apart looking for anything else missing. Mom’s old deed folder was still in the rolltop. My birth certificate. Raven’s papers. Only Willow’s file was gone.

Vera stood very still in the kitchen doorway. “Daddy kept carbon copies of every letter that mattered,” she said. “Not in the envelope he left for you. In the false bottom of the Pruitt shoebox June gave us — no. The other box. The one he kept under the floorboard by the woodstove.”

Royce didn’t argue. We piled back into the truck and raced toward the Kettering place with the county printout still crumpled in my fist.

The kitchen was still a mess from the night before. Vera dropped to her knees by the stove, pried up a loose board, and pulled out a thin metal tin I had never seen.

Inside: carbon copies. Clay’s careful slant. The letter that said For Caroline’s girl. And under it, something colder.

Practice sheets. Page after page of the same signature. Clay Kettering. Clay Kettering. Clay Kettering. Getting better each time. In the margins, in a different hand, notes about notary counties and filing windows.

Deke had been practicing for months.

A Photo That Should Not Exist

Tucked between the practice sheets was a printed photo of Clay’s original letter — the real one, yellowed edges and all — lying open on the Kettering kitchen table.

The timestamp in the corner of the print said it was taken fourteen days ago.

Fourteen days. Before Vera opened that door to us. Before any of us knew the letter existed. Before last night’s break-in.

Someone had already been inside this house. Someone had photographed the private wording Deke later copied onto his business card. Someone we might have trusted enough to leave alone with Clay’s things.

Royce’s voice went low. “Who had a key, Vera?”

Vera’s hands shook so hard the photo fluttered. “June. Me. The county locksmith Daddy used once. And…” She swallowed. “A woman from the land office who helped him file the real deed of gift years ago. The one whose out-of-county replacement stamp we saw yesterday.”

I thought about the soft-spoken clerk with glasses on a chain. The way she’d glanced toward the hallway when she said the buyer’s name. The way she’d whispered that the notary stamp wasn’t from this county — like she wanted us to know, or like she wanted us to think she was helping.

The Call From the Fence Line

My phone buzzed on the counter. Unknown number. Local area code.

I put it on speaker.

“Caroline’s girl,” a man’s voice said, the same amused tone that had answered Vera’s call to the Kettering house line. “You found my homework. Good. Saves time.”

Royce swore under his breath. Vera went still as stone.

“Bring the gray mare’s papers to the north fence at midnight,” Deke continued. “Or don’t. I’ve got copies either way. What I don’t have yet is your signature on a quiet little quitclaim. We can do this friendly… or I can file the amendment that already has your parcel number on it.”

“Willow’s gone,” I said, because I had to say something. “You took her papers. You don’t get our land.”

He laughed softly. “I didn’t take Willow, sweetheart. I bought what somebody else was already willing to sell. Ask your clerk friend how a forged Clay Kettering got past her counter so fast. Ask her why your farm showed up on the same day’s paperwork. Then look out your kitchen window.”

The line went dead.

We looked.

At the north fence, where the orange survey flag still stood, a pair of headlights sat idle in the dark. Not moving. Just waiting.

Who Let Him In

Royce reached for the shotgun above the door. Vera grabbed my wrist. “If we go out there blind, he wins,” she whispered. “If the clerk helped him, the county filing is poisoned. We need proof before midnight — not another empty chase.”

I stared at the photo timestamp. Fourteen days. A key. A stamp. A man who knew the wording of a letter that never should have left this house.

So now I’m asking you. Who photographed Clay’s letter two weeks before we ever saw it? Is the clerk at that county counter friend or forger’s helper? And if those headlights at our fence don’t leave before midnight — what exactly does Deke Pruitt already think he owns?

Part 19 is coming soon. Follow Reiterin on Facebook so you don’t miss what happens next.