Chapter 7: Brenda at the Door
I didn't plan to go to Brenda's house in Bethesda.
Patricia had told me to let the legal process move without interference.
But two days after the meeting, Brenda called my mother.
My mother handed me the phone without a word.
"Chloe." Brenda's voice was different.
The performance was gone.
"I need to talk to you."
"Then talk."
"Not on the phone.
Please."
I drove to Bethesda that afternoon.
Brenda answered the door in a housecoat.
No makeup.
She looked ten years older than she had standing in my hallway rearranging my towel shelf.
She led me to the kitchen.
Two cups of coffee were already on the table.
She sat down.
She didn't touch her cup.
"I didn't know about the forgeries," she said.
"What did you know?"
"Brandon told me you had agreed to transfer the apartment.
That you both decided it made more sense for me to move in and that you were going to stay at your parents' for a while." She paused.
"I thought it was strange.
But he said you'd had a long conversation and worked it out."
"We never had that conversation."
"I know that now."
I looked at her.
"And the savings?
The transfer to the Annapolis house?"
Brenda wrapped both hands around her cup.
"He said it was a joint investment.
That you both wanted to buy a second property and put it in my name for tax reasons." Her jaw tightened.
"I'm not stupid, Chloe.
I know how that sounds now.
But he's my son.
I believed him."
"Derek is on the mortgage," I said.
She looked up.
"Brandon kept his own name off it entirely," I said.
"If the fraud investigation reached the Annapolis property, it would land on you and Derek.
Not him."
The color left her face.
"He was going to let you take the fall," I said.
Not cruelly.
Just plainly.
Brenda set her cup down.
Her hand was shaking.
"I raised him," she said.
"I worked two jobs when his father left.
I gave him everything I had." She stopped.
"And he put my name on a mortgage he knew was bought with stolen money."
I didn't say anything.
"What do I do?" she said.
"Tell Patricia Owens everything you know," I said.
"Every conversation.
Every document he asked you to sign.
Every time Derek was involved.
All of it."
"Will that help me?"
"I don't know," I said honestly.
"But it's the only thing that might."
She nodded slowly.
I stood to leave.
At the kitchen doorway, I stopped.
"Brenda.
That morning at the apartment.
When you told the paramedics my father had att@cked you without provocation."
She looked at the table.
"My father shoved Brandon because Brandon was trying to slam a door in the face of a sick woman in her nightgown," I said.
"My mother spent that night in the hospital."
Brenda didn't answer for a long moment.
"I'll tell them what actually happened," she said quietly.
"I'll correct the statement."
I walked out into the afternoon.
The street was quiet.
Leaves were coming down from the oak tree at the end of her driveway, slow and unhurried, like they had all the time in the world.
Patricia called that evening.
"Brenda Owens came in at four o'clock," she said.
"She brought three documents Brandon had asked her to sign over the past year.
One of them is a secondary authorization connected to the power of attorney." A pause.
"Chloe, this is enough.
This is more than enough."
"When does it go to the Prosecutor?"
"Monday," Patricia said.
"All of it.
Monday morning."
I sat on the edge of my parents' guest bed.
Through the wall I could hear my mother moving around in the kitchen, the quiet clink of a spoon against a bowl.
"Patricia," I said.
"What about Derek?"
May you like
"Derek's attorney contacted me this afternoon," she said.
"He's already asking about a cooperation agreement."
