Chapter 5: What Patricia Found in Three Days
Patricia Owens's office was on the fourteenth floor of a building on Charles Street.
The view faced east.
I noticed that because when she told me what she had found in seventy-two hours of preliminary work, I needed somewhere to look that wasn't her face.
"Brandon filed for divorce six weeks ago," she said.
I turned from the window.
"That's not possible.
He never served me."
"He filed.
He didn't serve you yet.
He was waiting." Patricia opened a folder.
"The filing lists the apartment as his sole property.
It lists the joint savings account as depleted prior to separation — which is technically accurate, since he emptied it.
It makes no mention of the Pratt Street property because, as far as his attorney knows, he doesn't know it exists yet." She paused.
"Or didn't.
Until Derek's visit to Hargrove."
"So he filed for divorce first.
Then moved my mother out to provoke a confrontation.
Then used the confrontation to call the police and establish a record of me being removed from the property."
"Correct.
He needed a paper trail showing you had vacated voluntarily, or been removed for cause, before the divorce proceedings became public.
It would have made the property dispute cleaner."
I sat down.
"He planned this for months."
"At minimum six," Patricia said.
"Possibly longer.
The handwriting practice your mother mentioned — I'd put that at eight to ten months based on the timeline." She set another page on the desk.
"There's more."
I looked at it.
"The house in Annapolis," she said.
"The one purchased with your savings.
It's titled in Brenda's name, as you know.
But the purchase contract lists a co-borrower for the mortgage."
The co-borrower was Derek.
"Brandon kept his name off it entirely," Patricia said.
"If you had gone after the Annapolis property, you would have found Brenda and Derek.
Brandon would have appeared clean."
"He was going to walk away with the Pratt Street building and leave his mother and cousin holding everything else."
Patricia looked at me steadily.
"That is exactly what he was going to do."
I thought about Brenda unpacking her towels in my hallway.
I thought about her smile when she said the registry disagrees.
I wondered if she knew she was also being used.
"Does Brenda know about the Pratt Street property?" I asked.
"Unknown.
But I'd guess no.
Brandon wouldn't share that with anyone he didn't have to."
"What do we do now?"
Patricia closed the folder.
"We move on three fronts simultaneously.
First, we file an emergency motion to freeze all assets connected to Brandon, Derek, and Brenda pending a fraud investigation.
That stops any further transfers.
Second, Grace Ellison at Hargrove has agreed to provide a formal statement about Derek's visit and the forged authorization.
That goes to the Prosecutor's Office today." She picked up her pen.
"Third, I need you to go back through every piece of paper Brandon ever asked you to sign.
Receipts, packages, anything.
If there are more forged documents we haven't found yet, I want to know before he uses them."
"There could be others," I said.
"There almost certainly are," she said.
"Men like Brandon don't practice one signature for one document."
I went home to my parents' house and sat at the kitchen table with a box of old papers my mother had kept in the hall closet.
Utility receipts.
Takeout menus.
A birthday card from three years ago.
And underneath all of it, a folded paper I didn't recognize.
I unfolded it.
It was a power of attorney document.
Signed in my name.
Dated fourteen months ago.
Granting Brandon Miller full legal authority to act on my behalf in all financial and property matters.
My hands were steady.
I was past shaking.
I photographed it and sent it to Patricia.
Her reply came in forty seconds.
May you like
*This is the one he was saving.
Call me.*
