Chapter Eight
I MAKE THE PHONE CALLS on Monday morning from the small cabin while Cody runs the lodge.
The IOGLB confirms what I already know. My outfitter’s license is tied to my name, my territory allocation, and my documented experience.
If I withdraw my license from the lodge’s operation, no guided fishing trips can legally run from this property until a new licensed outfitter applies, passes examination, and receives territorial approval.
The representative tells me the process takes months at minimum.
My insurance broker confirms the policy follows the license and is non-transferable.
I call the lodge’s accountant in Boise and request a full financial audit of the business accounts going back four years to the start of the marriage. She says she can have an initial review of flagged transactions in two weeks and a complete report after that.
I finish the calls in an hour. Each one removes another piece of the floor Cody is standing on, and he doesn’t know it because he’s on the front porch right now, talking to a pair of new guests about the best hiking trails near Redfish Lake.
I spend the rest of the morning at my laptop in the main lodge, going through the business systems Cody manages.
The website runs on a platform I can access with the admin credentials I set up.
The booking system links to the lodge email, which is mine.
The social media passwords are saved in a browser I can open.
The email marketing list has four hundred names, and every one of them became a client because of the river, the lodge, and the guide who runs both.
Cody assembled the list. The product they signed up for is me.
It’s real work he did. I don’t minimize that.
Replacing it will take time, effort, and probably a part-time hire for the first season.
I’m willing to do that work. The difference between contributing to a business and owning it is the gap Cody never saw, and it’s the gap that’s going to swallow him.
My float with Noah is at ten.
Over the past two weeks, we’ve settled into a weekly rhythm, and this is our third outing. The silences between measurements have gotten longer and warmer. He’s still collecting data, still noting insect activity and water temperature, but the work has become the frame instead of the whole picture.
Halfway through the float, we get into an argument about catch-and-release.
Noah has data showing that repeated catch-and-release in heavily guided stretches causes cumulative stress on spawning fish, measurable through cortisol markers and delayed egg deposition.
I push back. I’ve been guiding catch-and-release on this river for twenty years, and the fish populations have been stable or growing on most of the reaches I work.
“Stable isn’t the same as unaffected,” Noah says.
“Stable means the river is doing its job.”
“Stable means the fish are surviving in spite of the pressure, not because of it.”
I row us through a riffle while I turn that over.
He’s not wrong. I don’t like the implication that twenty years of careful guiding might have a downside I haven’t measured, but I don’t dismiss it either, because Noah is the first person in a long time who argues with me using evidence instead of charm.
“Show me the cortisol data,” I say.
“I will. Next week. I’m presenting preliminary findings to Fish and Game in August.”
“I’ll read it.”
“I know you will,” he says, and his voice is matter-of-fact and sure.
He’s not flirting. He’s certain that I’ll read the data, certain that I’ll engage with it honestly, and certain that I’m worth the argument.
That certainty is different from anything I’ve gotten from Cody in years.
Cody agreed with me when it was easy and avoided me when it wasn’t.
Noah disagrees with me and respects me at the same time, and I didn’t know how much I needed that until I had it.
Near the end of the float, we hit a tricky landing at a gravel bar where the current pushes hard against the bank.
Noah grabs the bow line before I ask him to and steps into the water to hold the boat steady while I tie off the stern.
His hand is on the gunwale three inches from mine, and neither of us moves.
The moment lasts about four seconds longer than it needs to.
We don’t mention it. He goes back to his notebook. I secure the anchor.
I’m back at the lodge by two. I walk up from the dock toward the main building, and Gigi is coming out of the lodge office, closing the door behind her with one hand and holding her phone in the other.
She sees me and smiles. “Mac, hey. I was looking for a charger. My phone is dying and Jim’s napping and I didn’t want to bother anyone.”
“There’s a charging station at the front desk,” I say. “Cody keeps extras.”
“Oh, perfect. I didn’t know.” She waves her phone and walks toward the front desk, casual and unbothered.
I wait until she’s around the corner. Then I walk into the office and go to the file cabinet.
The property documents are in the top drawer, same as always.
I filed them back after the night I pulled the deed, the license, and the insurance, but these are copies.
The folder is in the right place, but the tab is bent forward at an angle I didn’t leave it, and the documents inside are stacked in a different order than I put them back.
Someone went through this drawer, looking at the deed, the license, or both.
If Gigi was the one in here, she wasn’t looking for a phone charger.
I straighten the folder and close the drawer. If she saw the deed in my name, she now knows Cody’s ownership claims don’t hold up. She’s not just the affair partner waiting for Cody to deliver her exit. She has her own questions, her own urgency, and she’s doing her own checking.
I lock the office door, walk back to my cabin, and open my notebook. I add today’s entry with the date, the time, Gigi exiting the office, the bent tab, and the reordered documents.
The evidence file grows thicker every day. The case gets sharper. Gigi Fleming just told me, without meaning to, that she’s not trusting Cody to handle this alone.
That makes two of us.