Chapter 4: The Brother Who Called Every Week
Daniel lived forty minutes from the house.
A quiet street, a modest front garden, a car in the driveway that I had helped him pay for three years ago when he said he needed it for work.
Patricia drove.
I sat in the passenger seat with the USB drive in my coat pocket and my phone in my hand, watching the missed calls accumulate on Daniel's line.
He wasn't answering.
That told me enough.
"He knows," I said.
"Almost certainly," Patricia said.
"He'll have a story ready."
"They always do."
We pulled into his street at half past two.
His car was still in the driveway.
The curtains in the front room shifted as we parked.
He opened the door before I could knock.
Daniel was fifty-four years old.
Shorter than Richard, softer in the face, with the kind of expression that had always made people trust him immediately.
He looked at me now with something that was trying very hard to be relief.
"Catherine." He stepped forward as if to embrace me.
"I heard what happened.
Are you all right?
I've been trying to reach you all morning."
"No you haven't," I said.
"I've been calling you for the last forty minutes."
His arms dropped.
"Come inside," he said.
The front room was tidy.
A mug of tea on the side table, still steaming.
He had been sitting here, waiting, deciding what to say.
I sat down across from him.
Patricia stood near the door.
"Tell me about Calloway Holdings," I said.
His face didn't move.
That was the tell.
A genuinely confused person would have frowned, asked what I meant, said the name back to me as a question.
Daniel just went still.
"I don't know what you're referring to," he said.
I took the restructuring document from Patricia's folder and placed it on the coffee table between us.
His signature faced upward.
He looked at it for three full seconds.
"That's not — that document is out of context," he said.
"Richard approached me about a restructuring.
I was trying to protect your assets.
I thought if I had a position inside the company structure, I could—"
"Stop," I said.
He stopped.
"You signed that two weeks before my diagnosis," I said.
"The same diagnosis Richard had already been told about.
The same diagnosis that was wrong.
So tell me, Daniel — how did Richard know I was sick before I did?"
The mug of tea sat between us.
He didn't reach for it.
"He told me you'd been unwell," Daniel said.
"That the doctors were concerned.
I was worried about you.
I thought—"
"You thought you'd secure a share of my companies before I was gone."
"That is not what happened."
"Then explain what happened.
Specifically.
With dates."
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Looked at Patricia, then back at me.
"Catherine," he said, and his voice shifted.
Quieter.
Something underneath it that I hadn't heard from him in a very long time.
"I made a mistake.
Richard came to me and he made it sound — he said you were going to be gone within the year.
He said the companies would be tied up in probate for years unless someone with family standing had a position.
He said he was trying to protect the legacy.
I believed him."
"You believed him."
"I know how that sounds."
"Do you?" I said.
"Because from where I'm sitting, it sounds like you sat across from me every week for three months, asked me how I was feeling, listened to me talk about being frightened, and said nothing.
Not one word.
You let me believe I was dying, Daniel.
You let me grieve my own life.
And the whole time you had already signed the papers."
His eyes went red at the edges.
"I didn't know the diagnosis was wrong," he said.
"But you knew what Richard was planning to do with my companies.
And you said nothing."
The room was very quiet.
Outside, a car passed slowly down the street.
"I need you to leave," Daniel said.
His voice had gone flat.
"I need to speak with a solicitor before I say anything else."
I stood up.
"That's probably wise," I said.
"Patricia has already filed a secondary complaint with the fraud office.
Your name is on it."
He stood up too, fast, the chair scraping back.
"You filed against me?
Your own brother?"
"You signed against me," I said.
"Your own sister."
I picked up the document from the table.
Folded it.
Put it back in the folder.
At the door, I stopped.
"The solicitor Richard used," I said.
May you like
"Don't call him.
He's been arrested too."
