Price Locked
“Bradley,” my mother said, “would you read me paragraph six, subsection C, out loud?”
She said it the way she’d once asked a child to repeat the multiplication tables, with a small, patient smile. Brad Haskell, who had been half out of his leather chair, lowered himself back into it. His watch caught the light from the window. He did not touch the page Ray Kowalski had slid across the desk.
“Mrs. Garner, I’m sure there’s been a misunderstanding about the…”
“Read it, please.”
He picked it up. His lips moved before his voice did.
“‘The Provider guarantees that the goods and services described in Schedule A, or their then-current equivalent, shall be furnished to the Beneficiary at no cost beyond the amount paid herein, regardless of any increase in the Provider’s prices, and this guarantee shall bind the Provider’s successors and assigns.’” He cleared his throat. “‘Executed this fourteenth day of September, 1998.’”
“And the signatures?”
“Walter J. Garner. Edmund Haskell.” His voice thinned. “Witness, Raymond Kowalski. Notary, Delphine Prater.”
“Edmund Haskell was your uncle.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Did he sign it?”
Brad looked at the page for a long time. “That’s his signature.”
My mother folded her hands.
My name is Carol Garner Pruitt. I’m fifty-eight, a billing supervisor at a hospital in Dayton, which means I read invoices for a living and know what an invented line item smells like. I should have caught it in that office. I was too busy watching my mother’s hands shake.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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