Invincible 7
Chapter 7
Jace and the girls spent several minutes digging through stuff in the attic with no luck.
Carole straightened up.
"I don't see anything, yet." she said
"Me either," replied Stevie who was looking through some boxes, "All I've found are some old clothes."
"Same," said Lisa sounding discouraged already, "We've just got to find those papers and figure out what this is all about."
She sat down rather abruptly on an object that was covered with a drop cloth.
"Ow!' she said getting up, "Whatever this is, it's kind of hard!" out of curiosity Jace walked over to it and pulled the drop cloth off of it. it turned out to be an antique steamer trunk.
Jace tried to open it but it was locked.
"Great it's locked," said Carole, "and I doubt Max would have any idea where to find the key."
"So now what?" asked Lisa. Stevie rubbed the back of her neck nervously. Finally, she reached down and picked up a small piece of wire from what was left of a metal coat hanger.
"Listen," she said, "Don't spread it around that I can do this but…" instead of finishing the sentence she leaned down and picked the lock with in a few seconds! Jace was impressed and so were the others.
Jace knelt down next to the now open and began looking through what was inside. There was a collection of old books and maps. Underneath everything else, they discovered a very old satchel!
"I wonder!" said Jace, "Grabbing the satchel, "He opened and pulled out some old papers." He scanned them.
"Bingo!" he said.
"The Hezekiah Regnery Papers?" asked Lisa. Jace nodded. As he read his eyes widened until it looked like they were about to pop out of his head.
"Holy Smoke!" he whispered
"What?!" the girls asked in unison
"Come on," he said, "We've got to find Max fast!" he jumped up and hurried down out of the attic and raced for Max's office. The girls were at his heels.
When they got to Max's office they found Deborah there!
"Hi Deborah, Where's Max?!" asked Jace
"We went into town to try and negotiate with the bank," answered Deborah, "The bank as balloon our Mortgage payment."
"You've got to get us into that bank!" said Jace, he held up the papers, these are the Hezekiah Regnery papers and they can get Max and Pine Hollow out of this mess!"
Deborah looked surprised, but she grabbed her keys. They all piled into her car and headed into town.
They got to the bank and ran inside just in time to find Max being told if he didn't make the payments he would lose Pine Hollow.
"Hold it!" snapped Jace, "I've got some papers that might just make Monkey boy here a little more negotiable!"
"What are you talking about?" asked Max
"I found the Hezekiah Regnery papers," said Jace, "and according to them, your great, great, grandfather once owned most of the Valley including the land that Willow Creek is built on! But here's the catch. Hezekiah Regnery provided the land for the town in the form of a land grant that contained the condition that three buildings had to be built within the first ten years after the town's founding. These buildings included: a town hall, a School, and a library."
"So, what?" said Max
"Listen I don't have time for a history lesson_," started Richard Morton
"You shut up and listen," snapped Stevie, "He's not finished yet and you're going to want to hear this."
"Max," said Jace, "This town was founded in 1850, but I checked it out and the library wasn't built until 1920 that's a full 60 years after the deadline! In other words, the terms of the land grant weren't met with in the allotted time, and These legal papers specifically state that if the terms aren't met in the specified time period, the land grant is nullified, and the property reverts back to the Hezekiah Regnery Estate and that's you Max. Besides owning Pine Hollow, You may very well own the entire town of Willow Creek including this bank!"
