Chapter 9: What Tyler Heard
David called Geoffrey immediately after Jasmine told him about Marcus.
Geoffrey's response was swift and unambiguous: a third party reaching out directly to the opposing family member, using information that could only have come from his client's confidential consultation, was a serious professional breach.
Geoffrey said he would be making a formal complaint to the relevant oversight body.
He also said something else: the fact that Marcus had called at all confirmed that Jessica and her legal team were aware the original plan was now at risk.
Defensive contact of this kind, Geoffrey said, was almost always a sign that the evidence trail was stronger than the other side had expected.
Jasmine wrote that down.
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Tyler came home from school that afternoon.
He was seventeen.
Big for his age, quiet in the house the way teenagers were when they'd learned that silence was safer.
He had never been cruel to Jasmine.
He had never been kind, either.
He existed in the house like a weather system — present, sometimes heavy, mostly just passing through.
He dropped his bag at the foot of the stairs and went to the kitchen.
Jasmine was at the table.
They didn't speak.
He opened the refrigerator.
Poured a glass of juice.
Stood at the counter.
Then he said, without looking at her: "She was on the phone for two hours this morning."
Jasmine looked up.
Tyler kept his eyes on his juice glass.
"I was home in the morning," he said.
"We had a half-day.
She didn't know." He paused.
"She was talking to someone called Marcus.
She was in her room but I could hear through the wall." Another pause.
"She said — I'm going to try to remember it exactly — she said, *He's already seeing his lawyer, it's too late to sit on this.* And then she said, *I need you to make sure the original filing date looks right.*"
Jasmine set down her pen.
"Make sure the filing date looks right," she repeated carefully.
"That's what she said."
"Tyler." Jasmine kept her voice very even.
"Why are you telling me this?"
He looked at the window for a moment.
Then at her.
"Because she told me," he said, "that when all of this was sorted out, we were going to move.
Her and me.
To a different house." He stopped.
"She said David's name.
She said it like — like he wasn't going to be there."
The kitchen was very still.
"She said it like he wasn't going to be there," Jasmine repeated.
Tyler looked back at his glass.
"She's been telling me for a year that this house is going to be ours," he said.
"I thought she meant — I thought David was part of that.
I thought she meant the four of us." His voice was flat but something was moving underneath it.
"Last week I asked her directly.
I said, what about David?
What about Jasmine?" He stopped.
"She said not to worry about it."
Jasmine looked at this boy who had lived in her house for three years and never been her enemy.
Who had just told her something that could change everything.
"Tyler," she said quietly, "would you be willing to say this to my father?"
He picked up his bag from the floor.
He stood with it over his shoulder, and he looked like someone who had made a decision and was already living slightly ahead of it.
"I'm not doing it to hurt her," he said.
"I know."
"She's still my mum."
"I know that too."
He looked at her for one more moment.
Then he went upstairs.
That evening, he sat at the kitchen table with David and told him everything he had heard.
David listened without interrupting.
When Tyler finished, David thanked him.
Quietly and genuinely.
Tyler nodded once and left the room.
David sat without speaking for a long time.
Then he picked up his phone and called Geoffrey.
"The original filing date," he said when Geoffrey answered.
"She may have tried to alter it.
What does that mean for us?"
Geoffrey's answer was three sentences.
Jasmine watched her father's face change as he listened.
May you like
When he hung up, he set the phone on the table and looked at her.
"If the filing date on the deed transfer was falsified," he said, "the entire transfer is void."
