Martha didn't waste time arguing. She turned, walked back into the lobby, and felt Rusk's phone find her instantly like a spotlight.
Pell stepped forward again, smooth as oil. "Mrs. Caldwell, you ready to accept assistance?"
Martha didn't look at the buyout sheet. She didn't look at Pell. She looked straight at Rusk's camera.
"I'm ready for my insurance record," she said clearly. "And I'm ready for someone to explain why the county sirens failed."
Rusk's smile flickered. Pell's didn't move at all. Martha walked out.
The air outside was damp and gray, still heavy with that storm aftertaste, wet wood and diesel and snapped earth. In the parking lot, Rusk's SUV sat angled toward the exit like it had been waiting.
The engine idled. Of course it did.
Martha got into her car and drove without rushing. She took the long way toward the bank, detouring around barricades, passing downed lines wrapped in yellow tape, passing houses with roofs like broken jaws.
She watched the rearview mirror. The county SUV rolled out behind her.
At the bank, the lobby was closed. A sign on the glass read limited services, drive-thru only.
Martha pulled into the lane, leaned out, and spoke into the metal speaker. "I need a statement," she said. "Proof of insurance payments, year-to-date and last year."
The teller's voice came tinny through static. "Ma'am, we can print. One moment."
Martha waited, hands tight on the wheel. The SUV didn't pull into the bank lot. It stayed across the street, parked near a gas station, watching through rain-speckled glass.
The teller slid the papers out in a tray. Martha grabbed them and flipped through.
There it was, payment after payment, dates and amounts every month like clockwork. She exhaled once, sharp. "Thank you."
She drove home with the statements on the passenger seat like they were fragile. As she turned onto her road, her stomach sank.
Orange paper slapped her front door, bright as a warning flare. Unsafe structure.
Below it, another notice, this one white and clean, laminated like it had been prepared before the storm even hit. Temporary condemnation. Pending assessment.
At the bottom, in smaller text, a support contact number appeared under a sleek logo: Midland Renewal Partners.
Martha stood in her muddy yard and stared at her own house like it had become someone else's property while she was gone. The wind fluttered the notices, making them slap the door like impatient hands.
She tore them down and marched inside through the wet living room. Her tin box was where it always was, in the cabinet under the radio, wrapped in a towel like it mattered.
She opened it with shaking fingers and pulled out the insurance receipts, the policy documents, everything her husband had insisted they keep. Then she made copies on the old printer she barely used, running it off the generator the riders had left.
The machine whined, ink streaking a little, paper curling at the edges. Martha didn't care. Copies were proof.
Outside, tires crunched the gravel shoulder. Martha went still. She moved to the broken window and peeked through the torn curtain.
Not the sheriff. Not Rusk.
A local pickup, Larry Fitch's truck.
Larry climbed out like he owned the air, holding a clipboard of his own. He walked up her drive, stepping around debris as if he'd done it a thousand times.
"Martha!" he called, too cheerful. "You in there?"