Chapter 6: What Toby Knew
We met at a diner near the university, far enough from Edina that none of them would walk past the window.
Toby was already there when I arrived, sitting in the back booth with a coffee he hadn't touched.
He was thirty-one, three years younger than Brandon, and he had always been the quieter one — the one who showed up to family dinners and said little and left early.
I had never paid him much attention.
I was regretting that now.
He stood when he saw me.
We shook hands.
He sat back down immediately, like he needed the table between us.
"Thank you for coming," he said.
"Tell me what you know."
He wrapped both hands around his coffee cup.
"Brandon set up the LLC about eighteen months ago.
He told me it was a consulting company — that he was doing some contract work on the side and needed a business structure for tax purposes.
I believed him.
I'm not in finance.
I didn't ask questions."
"When did you find out it wasn't that?"
"Miami." He looked at the table.
"He had too much to drink on the second night.
He started talking.
He said the consulting work was — his words — 'Spencer's contribution to the family.' He thought it was funny.
He said you'd never check because you trusted Chloe, and Chloe would never say anything because she liked the lifestyle."
I kept my face still.
"Did he say how much?"
Toby nodded slowly.
"He mentioned a number.
He said it like he was proud of it." He looked up at me.
"Two hundred and something thousand.
He said it like it was clever."
"It was $283,400," I said.
"Over fourteen months."
Toby's jaw tightened.
He looked away toward the window.
"I want you to know," he said, "that I didn't take any of it.
I paid for my own flights.
My own hotel.
I didn't know where their money was coming from until that night, and as soon as I was sober enough to think clearly, I messaged you."
"I believe you."
"What are you going to do?"
"My lawyer is building the case now.
A forensic accountant is going through the full transaction chain.
When it's complete, we'll go to the authorities."
Toby was quiet for a moment.
"Chloe knows," he said.
"I want to be clear about that.
She's not innocent in this.
She's the co-director on the LLC.
She signed the paperwork."
Something shifted in my chest.
I had been telling myself, in the quiet hours at the hospital, that maybe Chloe had been pulled in.
That maybe she hadn't understood what Brandon was doing.
That she was weak rather than dishonest.
"Are you certain?"
"Brandon showed me the filing on his phone.
Her signature is on it.
She signed it the same week you left for Zurich the first time."
I thought about the perfume in my suitcase.
The one I had bought for Chloe at the airport in Zurich because I still believed everyone deserved a gift.
"Will you give a statement?" I asked.
"To my lawyer.
In writing."
Toby didn't hesitate.
"Yes."
"It may mean testifying.
It may put you in a difficult position with Brandon."
"Brandon is my brother," Toby said.
"But what he did to your wife — leaving her alone like that, with a newborn, after surgery — " He stopped.
"My mother would have been ashamed of him."
He pulled a folded piece of paper from his jacket pocket and slid it across the table.
"I wrote down everything he said in Miami.
Dates, times, exact words, as close as I can remember.
I wrote it the morning after, while it was still clear."
I picked up the paper.
His handwriting was careful and precise.
"Toby," I said.
"Thank you."
He nodded and finally picked up his coffee.
It had gone cold.
He drank it anyway.
I walked back to my car in the January air, the folded paper in my coat pocket, and called Daniel.
"We have a witness," I said.
"And a written account."
"From who?"
"Brandon's brother.
He was in Miami.
Brandon told him everything."
A brief silence on Daniel's end.
May you like
"Spencer," he said, "that changes the timeline.
I think we're ready to move."
