Chapter 8: The Records Don't Lie
The counter-challenge came on a Thursday, as Sandra had predicted.
Brandon's legal team filed a motion arguing that Rosalind had lacked sufficient mental capacity at the time the trust was amended — citing her stroke, her medication history, and two signed statements from doctors who had treated her in the months before she passed.
Sandra called me the same afternoon.
"He found two physicians willing to state that her cognition was impaired," she said.
"Neither of them was her primary care doctor."
"Dr.
Anand," I said.
Dr.
Anand had been Rosalind's doctor for nine years.
I had sat in his office with her more times than I could count.
"I've already called him," Sandra said.
"He's willing to testify.
He documented her cognitive assessments at every visit.
Her scores were consistent and within normal range right up until the final month." A pause.
"He was also, it turns out, quite angry about the motion."
"What about Pendelton?"
"He has the original trust documents, the date of execution, and his own contemporaneous notes from every meeting with Rosalind.
He described her as, and I'm quoting, 'one of the sharpest clients I have worked with in forty years, made sharper by the fact that she was doing this entirely alone and entirely for someone else.'"
I sat down on the edge of the bed.
"They're not going to win this," I said.
"No.
But that's not the only reason Brandon filed it." Sandra's voice shifted slightly.
"Filing the motion puts pressure on you.
It signals that he's willing to make this long and expensive.
He's hoping you'll settle rather than fight."
"He doesn't know about the bank records yet," I said.
"He will tomorrow." A brief pause.
"The subpoena was executed this morning.
We have full account statements for the secondary account going back six years.
Lucia — the transfers are substantial.
We're talking about more than four hundred thousand dollars moved out of reachable marital assets over that period."
The number sat in the room with me.
"He was building an exit," I said.
"He was building a life," Sandra said.
"A parallel one.
The account has a co-signer."
"Diane?"
"No.
Someone else entirely.
A business partner named Garrett Foss.
We're still pulling the threads on that side.
But what's already visible is enough." She paused.
"How are you holding up?"
I looked at the window.
The afternoon light was going flat and gray.
"I'm fine," I said.
And I meant it, which surprised me slightly.
"Good.
Because I need you in my office Friday morning.
We're filing our response to the competency motion, and I want you to review the financial summary before it goes in."
"I'll be there."
I called Diane after I hung up.
She answered quickly.
"Sandra got the bank records," I said.
"There's a second name on the account.
Someone named Garrett Foss."
Silence.
"Diane.
Do you know that name?"
"Yes," she said slowly.
"Garrett Foss is Brandon's business partner.
They've been partners for about five years." Another pause.
"He was at the resort in Honolulu.
He was there with his wife.
Brandon told me it was a business trip for both of them."
"So Foss knew."
"Foss knew everything," Diane said.
"He was there the night Brandon and I met.
He introduced us."
I pressed my hand flat against the wall.
"He's on the account," I said.
"Which means he's part of the financial concealment."
"What does that mean legally?"
"I don't know yet.
But Sandra will."
I called Sandra back immediately.
She listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she said: "That changes the scope considerably."
"How considerably?"
"It means this is no longer only a divorce proceeding." Her voice was precise and careful.
"If Foss participated in moving marital assets with knowledge of the marriage, that opens the door to a civil claim against him as well.
It also gives us leverage Brandon did not account for, because now his business partner is exposed too."
I thought about Brandon sitting across from me in that conference room.
The certainty in his face.
The belief that he had already calculated every angle.
He hadn't calculated Garrett Foss becoming a liability.
"File everything," I said.
"Already planned," Sandra said.
"Friday morning.
Get some rest."
I set the phone down and stood in the quiet of Rosalind's house.
Her reading chair was still by the window.
Her books were still on the shelf.
The photograph of her and Brandon from years ago — before everything — was still on the mantle.
I didn't take it down.
But I turned it slightly, so it faced the wall.
May you like
Friday came fast.
And Brandon had no idea what was waiting for him in those documents.
