I leaned back, my shoulders feeling heavy and low. “Tell me the good news.”

“I’m sorry, Lane. I wish things looked different, but numbers don’t lie.”

I flipped through the binder of information Simon had provided. Charts noting the inn’s total revenue, expenses by department, analyses, projections. To say it was extensive was an incredible understatement. It was likely thousands of dollars’ worth of work he had done all for free. “Simon, I can’t believe you did all of this. This feels like so much more than number crunching.”

“That’s why I get paid the big bucks.”

I closed the binder and swatted at his chest. “Except you aren’t letting us pay you the big bucks. This is crazy.”

He smiled. “Strategic management accounting is what I do. It’s numbers, but it’s also figuring out what management decisions would make the numbers look better.”

“Which means you’re also going to be able to tell us how to fix things?”

He frowned, running a hand over his jaw. “Lane . . .” He forced out a breath. “I’m not sure the inn is worth fixing. At least not for Ida.”

My heart sank into my stomach. “Why? It wouldn’t be hard to turn things around, right? We let some people go, we shut down breakfast and lunch. I get the problems are big, but they still look fixable.”

“On the surface, they appear to be. But the problem is much deeper than that.”

“Okay. Explain.”

“Rather than fixing the aspects of the business that were failing, Thornton did what he could to stay afloat, relying on credit. Lots and lots of credit. He used his business card until it was maxed out and then switched over to two different personal cards that are in his and Ida’s names together.”

“Did Ida know about them?”

“I don’t think so. The address on all three accounts is a post office box in Carrboro. My hunch is that Thornton used a PO box so Ida wouldn’t see the statements. It was lucky I found a note about it in the back of his most recent ledger. It took a little bit of searching to find the right post office, but I finally found it and took the liberty of checking his mail. All three accounts are in arrears. The collection letters are piling up.”

“How much debt are we talking about?”

“In total? $175,000.”

I closed my eyes. “Oh, geez.”

“Yeah. Not great numbers for a small operation like this.”

“There’s got to be a way to fix this. Maybe Thornton had a life-insurance policy. Maybe if we shave expenses way down, we can slowly pay the debt and get the inn back on its feet.”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple.”

“It has to be that simple. People love this place. We can’t just give up.”