Chapter 6 - The Second Birthday.
Brandon's words stayed in the room after he stopped speaking.
He didn't retire.
Jennifer felt every assumption she had made about the past seven years tilt at once.
"Where is Arthur?"
Brandon rubbed one hand across his face.
For the first time that day, he looked older than thirty-two.
"I don't know."
Marianne's expression hardened.
"You always say that when the truth is worse."
Brandon looked at her sharply.
"You disappeared too."
"Because Katherine told me to."
Jennifer turned toward Marianne.
"What?"
Marianne looked almost apologetic.
"Before she died, she made me promise that if anyone tried to use the trust against you, I would leave the company and keep copies of specific records somewhere separate."
"Why didn't you contact me?"
"I did."
Jennifer frowned.
"When?"
"Three letters."
Jennifer stared at her.
"I never received them."
Marianne looked at Brandon.
His silence answered for him.
Jennifer felt anger rise, but she kept her voice level.
"Did you intercept mail from Marianne?"
Brandon shook his head.
"I screened threatening correspondence during a difficult period."
"Threatening?"
Marianne gave a sharp laugh.
"The first letter said your mother had left records for you."
Jennifer looked at Brandon.
"You decided that was a threat?"
"I decided you were grieving and vulnerable."
The sentence was so familiar in structure that Jennifer almost admired its predictability.
He had always wrapped control in concern.
"Where is the case?"
"Not here."
"Where?"
Brandon stayed silent.
Jennifer picked up her phone.
"Then I call counsel and tell them you're withholding trust property."
"Wait."
"You have five seconds."
"Claire has it."
Marianne closed her eyes briefly.
Jennifer did not move.
"Why?"
"Because she took it."
"From you?"
"At the hotel."
Jennifer thought back to the banquet.
She had left first.
Brandon had followed her downstairs holding the case.
But between the ballroom and the hotel entrance, several minutes had passed.
"You gave it to her."
"I didn't."
"How would she know what it was?"
Brandon hesitated.
"Because Arthur told her."
Jennifer felt a new piece slide into place.
"Claire knew Arthur Bell."
"Yes."
"How?"
Brandon looked at the floor.
"She's his daughter."
Jennifer said nothing.
Marianne sat down slowly.
Even she appeared surprised.
"Arthur had a daughter named Claire?"
Brandon nodded.
"From his first marriage."
"You told me Claire was a vendor."
"I know."
"And Owen?"
"Arthur's grandson."
Jennifer's mind moved back to the photographs.
Brandon carrying the backpack.
Brandon at the cabin.
Brandon beside the birthday boy.
The images still looked intimate.
But intimacy could have more than one explanation.
"Were you having an affair with her?"
Brandon did not answer quickly enough.
Jennifer's jaw tightened.
"Yes or no."
"It ended months ago."
Marianne looked away.
Jennifer felt the answer like a cold pressure beneath her ribs.
She had expected it.
Expectation did not make it painless.
"How long?"
"Jennifer—"
"How long?"
"Nine months."
Jennifer looked at the ceiling.
Nine months.
The hidden transfers began eighteen months ago.
The affair had come later.
That distinction mattered.
"So you were paying Claire before the affair."
Brandon nodded reluctantly.
"Why?"
"Arthur contacted me after the wedding."
Jennifer waited.
"He said he believed someone had accessed draft trust documents using his credentials."
"Someone?"
Brandon looked directly at her.
"Me."
Jennifer's face became still.
"You used his credentials."
"Once."
Marianne scoffed.
Brandon snapped toward her.
"Once at first."
Jennifer's voice cut through them.
"Continue."
Brandon breathed out.
"I was trying to understand what your mother had put in place."
"So you accessed confidential trust documents."
"I thought she was trying to keep me from having any role in our finances."
"She was."
Brandon looked at her.
Jennifer did not blink.
"And she was right."
He flinched.
"Arthur confronted me."
"Then what?"
"He said he was going to tell you."
"But he didn't."
"No."
"Why?"
Brandon's eyes shifted.
Jennifer knew immediately the next sentence would matter.
"Because someone else had already used the access."
Marianne frowned.
"Who?"
"I don't know."
Jennifer stared at him.
"You expect me to believe that?"
"I found transfers I hadn't made."
"The same transfers you're benefiting from now?"
"No. Earlier ones."
Brandon moved toward the desk.
"Arthur and I agreed to quietly trace them before telling you."
Marianne shook her head.
"Arthur would never agree to that."
"He did because Katherine had just died and Jennifer was barely functioning."
Jennifer felt the insult in that sentence.
She also remembered the months after her mother's death.
She had functioned.
She had signed papers.
She had attended meetings.
She had gone through a wedding she could barely remember.
Could Arthur have delayed bad news to protect her?
Possibly.
That possibility made the story more dangerous, not less.
"Where did Arthur go?"
Brandon's face tightened.
"He vanished six weeks after the wedding."
"And Claire?"
"She contacted me years later."
"Saying what?"
"That she had Arthur's files."
Jennifer understood the shape of it now.
"She wanted money."
"At first she wanted answers."
"And later?"
"Support."
"For Owen."
Brandon nodded.
Jennifer's voice became quiet.
"You paid her from my mother's trust."
"I told myself I was replacing money that should have gone to Arthur's family."
"With money that wasn't yours."
"Yes."
It was the first clean admission he had made.
Jennifer felt no relief.
"And then you started sleeping with her."
Brandon looked away.
"Yes."
Silence settled again.
Jennifer stood.
"Give me Claire's address."
"No."
"You don't get to say no anymore."
"She has Owen with her. I won't have you arriving angry."
Jennifer stared at him.
"You still think this is about me making a scene."
"I think everyone is emotional."
"I'm not asking to see Owen."
Jennifer held out her hand.
"I'm asking for my mother's briefcase."
Brandon hesitated.
Then he wrote an address on a page from Katherine's old notepad.
Jennifer read it.
A lakeside townhouse in Arden Cove.
The same area as the restaurant in the photograph.
Marianne rose.
"I'll go with you."
Jennifer nodded.
Brandon stepped between them and the door.
"There's one thing you need to know first."
Jennifer waited.
"Today wasn't Owen's actual birthday."
"What?"
"His birthday was three months ago."
Jennifer looked at him.
"Then what was that party?"
Brandon's face tightened.
"A second birthday."
"Why?"
He swallowed.
"Because Claire said Arthur was coming home."
Before they left for Arden Cove, Jennifer went upstairs to her childhood bedroom.
A framed wedding photograph still sat inside the closet where she had placed it after Katherine died.
Jennifer and Brandon were smiling beneath an arch of white roses.
Catherine stood behind them.
Arthur was visible near the edge of the frame.
So was Victor.
Jennifer had never noticed how close the two men were standing.
She turned the photograph over.
On the back, Katherine had written one sentence before the wedding.
Choose the person who lets you remain yourself.
Jennifer sat on the edge of the bed and read it again.
She did not tear the photograph.
She did not throw it away.
The marriage had been real because she had lived it, even if Brandon had corrupted parts of it.
Destroying the evidence of her own happiness would not punish him.
It would only make his dishonesty the author of her memory too.
As Luis started the car toward Arden Cove, Brandon remained in the driveway of Katherine's house.
He did not try to stop Jennifer again.
That worried her.
A man who had spent hours controlling each conversation had suddenly surrendered the next move.
Either he had accepted that the truth was coming out, or he believed Claire would stop it.
Jennifer texted Nora the Arden Cove address and asked her to preserve the location in their case notes.
May you like
Then she put the phone away.
Whatever waited at the lake, she would not enter it undocumented.
