Chapter Sixteen
Legal Custody
“Who’s taking the ball?” Brooke’s confusion sent her voice to a higher pitch as they stood in the muggy evening air in the grassy backyard of Left Field. Her stress level had already been elevated by the dangling conversation between her and Dane before Aunt Ruth and her distressing papers walked up.
What had he been about to say? It had seemed important. But it was gone from his face now.
“The scruffy-looking people?” Aunt Ruth asked. “Because they can’t have it. It’s Brooke’s. It’s going to be the bedrock of Left Field.”
And their whole financial future, Brooke could add. “But I have a meeting with Trae Earnshaw shortly.” Which— dang it. She couldn’t go see that handwriting expert over in Chincoteague. “I’m actually going to have to cancel with Norvin North.”
Too many responsibilities competed for her attention. Court, funding for Left Field, all of it. She was slipping.
“That sounds bad,” Aunt Ruth said, her eyes bouncing between the two of them. She could sense the tension, too.
“The investor wants to see the ball again, bring another appraiser, make sure we’re not scamming him. Tonight’s meeting is for signing contracts and handing over the check. Nothing can go wrong.” She checked her watch. She’d have to reschedule with the Norvin North guy— and there was no time. “You picked it up from the safety deposit box before the bank closed, right?”
Aunt Ruth nodded. “Which is what made me consider loading my shotgun when those two reprobates showed up with that letter. I thought they’d seen me get it from the bank and came by to mug an old lady.”
In no way was Aunt Ruth old.
Brooke leaned against the tall fence surrounding the yard to support herself. “Scruffy people?” She turned to Dane.
“Process servers, most likely.” He was absorbed in the letter.
“They can’t actually take it, can they?” She wanted to lean on Dane, but he had such a stern, distant look ever since they’d been in the truck, she wasn’t sure. He was out of sorts.
“I’d have to look it up.” He glanced up from the letter, and the concern in his eyes dampened Brooke’s hopes. This was not good. So not good.
“But then you’d be acting as my lawyer. Dane—” Brooke knew it would put him in a bad position. Probably worse than he had let on.
“Let me deal with all that.” He gave her a peck on the cheek and got back into his truck. Her lips tingled with disappointment. “I know what I’m doing. And hey?” he said from inside the truck. “Be careful.”
“With the ball? I’m not letting it out of my sight.” Whatever that letter said, no way could LaBarge and his henchmen legally force her to forfeit her ball.
“I mean with yourself.”
Cold fear washed through her. What did he mean, be careful with herself? Nothing was going to happen to her. Unless it had something to do with the scruffy people. She hugged herself against a sudden gust of night wind.
What was he going to tell me before Aunt Ruth came out? He’d heard something while Brooke was in Fawn & Zimmerman. Maybe it meant danger.
More than ever she wanted him to stay, but Aunt Ruth had charged into Left Field and then come rushing back out with the Called Shot Ball’s lacquer box in hand.
“Here. You’re going to be late for your meeting with Earnshaw.”
__________
“Mr. Earnshaw. Good to see you again.” Brooke extended a hand to shake. No restaurant tonight, he’d insisted they meet at the lobby of Maddox’s nicest bed and breakfast, where he must be staying. “And this is your friend?” Brooke strained to make polite conversation, to remember what little questions to ask, as her mind jumped a hundred places. Exactly who were the scruffy people, and could they actually make her give up the Called Shot Ball? Her innards recoiled. But whatever that paperwork said, it couldn’t be legally binding. It had to be some kind of intimidation tactic— something without real teeth.
Brooke refused to believe it could be legal to make her surrender her rightful property.
“My associate, Miss Finch. She’s here to appraise the ball.”
Miss Finch looked too young to appraise anything except fashion at Forever 21, but Brooke went with it.
The second they sat down on the antique furniture, Trae insisted on opening the lacquer box. “As I told you,” he showed it to Miss Finch, “it’s got the right stitching and stamping.”
“No signature?” Miss Finch looked up, eyes narrowed at Brooke.
“Um, no.” Brooke assumed an expert would understand. “This isn’t some souvenir. This is the ball, caught by a fan in the stands.”
The china doll face relaxed. “Just testing you.”
Brooke’s pulse up-ticked. “Testing.”
Trae Earnshaw shrugged it off. “I have to be wary of scams. As an investor, you know. And today I’m here to make the investment official.” He patted a pile of paperwork.
But Brooke’s hackles had been raised. “I’m not here to scam you, Mr. Earnshaw. And if you don’t know that by now—”
Miss Finch interjected. “Did you see this accompanying paperwork, darling? Provenance up the yingyang.” She batted her eyelashes, her eyes decorated with a thick schmear of sparkling dark green eyeshadow.
Up the yingyang? “Yes,” Brooke said. “Its authenticity hasn’t been in question.” Although should it have been? “The signature of Franklin Delano Roosevelt is being looked at by an expert.” Assuming Dane had gotten in touch with an expert. Assuming she could hang onto the ball and all its accompanying documents long enough to get it examined, what with the scruffy people— whoever they were— nipping at her heels with their fake legal notices.
Miss Finch pursed her burgundy-lipsticked mouth. “It’s got all the hallmarks.” This appraiser gave her blessing, and Brooke exhaled.
“I’m writing the check now, Miss Chadwick.” Earnshaw pulled out his checkbook. “Let’s get this puppy on display as soon as possible.”
Warm gratitude and relief lit Brooke’s insides. “Of course. Thank you, Mr. Earnshaw. With this investment, I’d say we should be open in a couple of months.”
“Make it weeks, add my name to the display of the Called Shot Ball, and I’ll double it.”
Angels sang in Brooke’s ears. “Excuse me? Are you serious?”
Miss Finch answered for him. “Trae is always serious.” Her sleek black hair bobbed in emphasis.
“Thank you!” Brooke clutched the ball, the check, and her heart. “Absolutely. It’ll be ‘Trae Earnshaw Presents: The Called Shot Ball.’”
He put his feet up on the coffee table and got comfy in the overstuffed parlor of the B&B. “Let’s call it Trae.”
The display? He could call it whatever he wanted. This was incredible. Brooke might explode with excitement. Dane would be so happy at their success. Oh, yeah. And so would Aunt Ruth.
The bell on the front door of the B&B jingled, and Brooke turned to see who had come in, suddenly twice as protective of this ball in front of possible strangers.
But this wasn’t a stranger. This was the best face she could hope to see.
“Dane? Cool. I’m so glad to…wait. What are you doing here?”
He looked grave. And he was accompanied by two, as Aunt Ruth would say, scruffy-looking men.
“Brooke, I’m sorry. It’s legal, what they’re doing. And there’s no way to stop it.”
“John Poole. Process server for the Naughton Superior Court.” The taller Scruff stepped forward and handed her a typed notice.
Notice of Detinue Action.
“Detinue action?” She scanned the legalese. It took a second for the meaning to distill in her mind. The situation sank in. They were taking the ball. “Wait. No. It’s mine, as it said in the will.”
“That’s for the court to determine. On Tuesday.”
“Well, I’m not handing it over just like that.” Brooke’s heels dug into the pink plush carpet of the B&B. “How did you find me, anyway? Were you following me?” A worse thought hit her, sending white pangs of terror snaking through her. “Did you lead them here, Dane?”
She stood blinking, waiting for his answer.
“You have to give it to them. The court requires it.”
“So you did lead them here.”
“No. No, not at all.”
“Your vehicle is known, Miss Chadwick,” the John Poole person said. “You’d be wise to comply with court orders.”
“I came as soon as I could. These yay-hoos just happened to arrive at the same moment.”
Up walked Earnshaw, the sexy appraiser on his arm. “What’s going on here?”
“Writ of Detinue.” Dane’s mouth made a grim straight line. “Basically, someone has insisted the ball’s ownership is in dispute.”
“And?” Earnshaw’s skepticism was growing.
“And under detinue action, someone— one guess who— has paid the court twice the value of the disputed item, basically put up a bond, to have the court keep the item in custody until the ownership can be sorted out.”
Brooke looked up at him. He was deadly serious. He must have gone immediately to research the law the moment she left. Earlier he’d said he wanted her to be able to count on him, and—
“And so you better hand over the ball to us, lady. It’s not yours to keep at this point.”
“Wait a minute.” Earnshaw stepped up, putting his hand between Brooke and Poole. He turned to Dane. “This is legal? You’re sure?”
Poole jumped in. “You was delivered notice earlier, Miss Chadwick. You had plenty of time to prepare yourself. I’m glad to see you’re lugging around the item, just in case we might show up for it.”
Earnshaw turned on her, his eyes narrowing. “Did you know about this before you came down here tonight?”
Brooke’s stomach might as well have been trying out for the Olympics gymnastic team. “I assumed the notice couldn’t be legal.”
Earnshaw snatched the check from Brooke’s grip. “And you also swore up and down you weren’t running any kind of a scam.” The rip of the paper cut through her ears, shooting straight to her heart.
“Please, no. Mr. Earnshaw!” she cried. “I swear. I had no idea this could happen.”
“I swear, neither did I.” He was unamused, and he took Miss Fitch by the arm and marched up the stairs of the B&B. “Don’t come begging to me again. I have no patience for fraud.”
Fraud! A distant rumbling signaled Brooke’s entire world falling apart.
At the top of the stairs, Earnshaw turned around. “Oh, and the money you’ve already been given? I’ll have that back next week. With interest.” He disappeared into the depths of the hotel.
But— all that money had gone into overhead, into the preparation of the museum. She couldn’t pay it back. It was in the plumbing and the tile floor and the roof repair.
“Mr. Earnshaw—” Brooke started for the staircase, desperate for another chance, but she stopped herself and whirled on Dane. “Dane. We can’t let them take this. It’s all we have.”
“We don’t have a choice.” Dane gently pried the lacquer box from her arms and handed it to Mr. Poole. “You let anything happen to this, and I take it out of your hide.”
“Understood.” Poole and his compadre evaporated like steam.
Dane led Brooke out onto the front lawn. She couldn’t help it— tears welled in her eyes and spilled hot down her cheeks.
“Isn’t there any way we can get it back? If we had it back, Earnshaw wouldn’t be so harsh, I’m sure of it.” She couldn’t hold back an unattractive sniffle. But at the moment, she didn’t care. “There has to be a way around it.”
“Oh, there’s a way around it. Same as putting it into hock, you can buy it back out.”
“For how much?”
“Same amount the plaintiff paid to put it into hock— twice the appraised value of the object.”
“But how much is that?” Brooke braced herself for a big number. After all, it was the most important baseball in history. “Do we even know how much was paid? I assume it was LaBarge.”
“Oh, it was Faro LaBarge, all right.” Dane frowned. It was the same dark frown as earlier when they’d talked about LaBarge on the drive back from Naughton. “I called a friend who works at the court and who saw the bond to hold the ball come in. It doesn’t matter how much. You can’t afford it.”
He shouldn’t be doing that— acting as her agent. Not that she didn’t need and want his help. She did, desperately. But he could be in so much trouble. Her heart skipped around in her chest in terror.
“Tell me.” She could sell her old Honda, see if Quirt had any of his life insurance payout left after his education. “I can take it. Is it more than $25,000?”
A dry laugh puffed from Dane’s lips. “Times that by a hundred.”
Brooke’s head spun. “A huh-huh-hundred?” So, she’d just been carrying two-and-a-half million bucks worth of baseball around in her old Honda?
“Wait. Math time. Is that the value, or is it twice the value, the amount for the bond?”
“I’m afraid it’s the base value.”
So that made it five million. She’d have to cough up five million bucks, just to keep hold of what was rightfully hers, according to Harvey Jarman’s will.
“So just because Sarge LaBarge has a disposable five million in cash and I don’t, he can get the law to take my stuff? It seems so wrong. Is that like a hostile takeover in business-speak? Should I have let it go? Possession is nine-tenths of the law, and I had it. Right in my hands.” Brooke was blabbering now.
Dane reached an arm around her. “There was nothing for it. You had to obey the law.”
“And now we have nothing.”
“I wouldn’t say nothing.”
“Oh, yeah? What do we have, counselor? We haven’t got the ball, we haven’t got the will or the handwriting comparison, even if we did have an expert to comment on it.
“Oh, but you’re right— we do have something. We have four days, two of which are a weekend, and one of which is only a morning, until we have to be in court with proof that ball belongs to me.” Her voice wound up. “And I don’t even have a lawyer. And I’m going up against a notorious politician who always gets his way and knows all kinds of legal acrobatics— enough to wrench that ball away from me when I had it in my hands for my investor. I don’t have a check, and I can’t open my aunt’s museum. And I have to pay Earnshaw back all the funds he loaned me, which is going to wipe out everything, since the building probably will never sell, and I’ll basically lose all the life insurance money I invested to get the place ready to open.” Brooke sucked in a huge breath. “And so you’re saying we have something, Dane? Seriously?”
“We have your brain, and my legal knowledge.”
Knowledge which they couldn’t use outright, not safely for Dane’s career’s sake. He was risking too much for her.
“Oh,” he said, “and the phone pictures we took.”
Brooke gave a dry laugh. “Rock solid case for Tuesday.”
“Bedrock.” The left side of his mouth lifted, and that deep dimple sank.
Dane’s phone buzzed, and he checked the text, the grin fading and a line forming between his brows.
“I have to go.”
“But it’s after nine.” And her lips ached for his dimple, his mouth, his affection. “What’s wrong?”
He blinked at her for a few seconds and didn’t answer. Clearly, he had something he was keeping from her. Worry crawled through her chest.
“It’s Tweed.”
“Your boss? This late?”
“He says I need to come in.”
Brooke brightened. “Maybe the ethics committee is dropping the charges and he can’t wait to tell you in person.”
“Good night, Brooke.” He leaned in, as if to kiss her, but he stopped himself. “Remember, I’ll always be here for you.”