HOA Sold Me Their Dried-Up Lake for $9,000 — Then Tried to Take It Back After a $41M Find
Chapter 11
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The missing years remained a problem until Sarah found a former employee of Red Hollow Resource Surveys. His name was Thomas Reed. He had retired, but he still had copies of letters connected to unpaid work. With the proper permission, he shared the records from the lake project. One letter warned the board that the drilling had found material worth further testing. Another requested payment so the work could continue.There was no hidden $41 million promise in those papers. There was something simpler and, in some ways, uglier: the company had recommended more study; the board had refused to spend more money; its final invoice remained disputed. Russell had later described the project to homeowners as a failed search for the cause of the leak, leaving out the separate reason the drilling had continued.Sarah was careful about what that meant: the old findings did not prove a valuable deposit, and nobody could know what fresh tests would show. Patricia and Russell might have believed the chances were poor, but their sudden interest in my boxes made more sense now. They knew there had been an unanswered question beneath the lake, and someone else was finally paying to answer it.Brian's attorney contacted Rebecca before the fourth week ended. Brian wanted to provide information about his maintenance work. I was not part of his interview with investigators, but Deputy Price later asked me for copies of my photographs. Brian had said Russell ordered him to uncover and open the upper pond's outlet gate on the morning of our accident; he claimed he had been told it was a routine flow test.Price would not tell me what he believed. He said they were checking the timing, the messages, and who knew we were working beside the building. That restraint mattered: I had spent several nights imagining someone planning my death, and the facts did not yet prove that. They did prove that water had been released into an old system while people were working below it, with no warning given to us.Walter came to help replace the gate post even though I told him he owed me nothing. We worked slowly, with Frank doing the heavy lifting. At lunch, Walter admitted he had been avoiding June's church friends because he could not bear their questions. I told him about the first months after Susan died, when I crossed grocery aisles to avoid kind people who did not know what to say."You don't have to make this easy for everybody else," I told him.He stared at his sandwich for a while, then finally took a bite. We finished the gate that afternoon. It was straighter than the old one and twice as strong. Before Walter left, he touched the new post and said he hoped his son would someday help repair something without first having to break it.Sarah called on a Thursday and asked me to come to Rebecca's office. She would not discuss the results while I was driving. Lucy came with me, carrying a notebook as if she could protect me by writing everything down.