Chapter 6: What Brandon Started
Sandra Reeves had a corner office on the fourth floor of a building two blocks from the courthouse.
She was sixty-one, small, and had the kind of stillness that made you feel like she had already read every document in the room before you arrived.
She had.
Diane and I sat across from her with our respective folders open on the table.
Sandra looked at the USB drive contents on her laptop, at the DNA report, at the copy of the letter Brandon's attorney had sent to Mr.
Pendelton, and said nothing for a long time.
Then she looked up.
"He filed a competency challenge against his own mother while she was still alive and actively managing her affairs," Sandra said.
"That is not a legal maneuver.
That is a declaration of intent."
"Can it affect the trust?" I asked.
"Not if the trust was properly executed, which it was.
Pendelton is meticulous." She turned to Diane.
"The financial transfers — your attorney has the same records?"
"Full copies," Diane said.
"Going back four years."
"And the child's paternity is established by the DNA report Rosalind commissioned."
"Yes."
Sandra closed the laptop.
"Then here is where we are.
Brandon has exposed himself on three separate fronts.
The hidden account constitutes financial concealment in a marital estate — that is relevant to your divorce settlement, Lucia.
The competency filing against his mother, made while she was lucid and legally active, will not reflect well on him in any courtroom.
And the existence of a seven-year-old child he has never formally acknowledged creates a separate legal obligation that Diane's attorney will pursue independently."
"He doesn't know we've spoken," I said.
"Good.
Keep it that way for now." Sandra leaned back.
"He will make contact with you again.
Probably soon.
When he does, he will try one of two things.
He will either attempt to negotiate privately — offer you something to make this quieter — or he will try to find out how much you know."
She was right.
My phone had already shown four more missed calls from Brandon since that morning.
"There's something else," Diane said.
She reached into her folder and placed a printed email on the table.
"He sent this to me last night."
Sandra read it.
Then she slid it across to me.
It was three paragraphs.
The first said Diane was misremembering their arrangement.
The second said any legal action she pursued would be contested aggressively.
The third said — and I read this line twice — *that if she involved his wife in this matter, he would make sure the family court understood the kind of environment Maya was being raised in.*
I set the paper down.
"He threatened her daughter," I said.
"He threatened the custody evaluation," Sandra said precisely.
"It amounts to the same thing." She picked up the email and placed it in her own folder.
"This is now part of your file, Diane.
Your attorney will want the original."
Diane nodded.
She had gone very still.
"He knows I talked to someone," she said quietly.
"He doesn't know it was you.
But he knows I talked to someone."
Sandra looked at both of us.
"Then we move faster than he expects." She picked up her pen.
"I'm filing the divorce petition today.
Diane, call your attorney from the parking garage — not from home, not from your cell if it's on a shared plan.
And neither of you contacts Brandon directly.
Not a text, not an email, not a call."
She stood.
We stood.
"One more thing," Sandra said.
She looked at me specifically.
"He will come to the house again.
When he does, do not open the door.
Do not speak to him through the door.
Call me."
I nodded.
I was in the parking garage, keys in hand, when my phone lit up with a text from a number I didn't recognize.
*This is Marcus Hale.
I'm Brandon's attorney.
I'd like to arrange a brief conversation at your earliest convenience.
I believe we can resolve this quietly and fairly for everyone involved.*
I photographed the text and sent it to Sandra before I reached my car.
May you like
Quietly and fairly.
Brandon had found out faster than any of us expected.
