Chapter 8: Brooklyn's Last Move
Carla filed the harassment documentation the following morning.
Brooklyn's text, timestamped and forwarded, went into the case file alongside Donna's statement, the cloud footage, and the access log showing Melissa's deletion attempt.
Carla had also subpoenaed the house camera's full history — not just the day of the lunch, but the previous six months.
"If Brooklyn has done this before," Carla said, "there may be a pattern in that footage."
I thought of what Griffin had told me.
Callan's last girlfriend.
Christmas dinner.
A glass that Brooklyn claimed was thrown.
"How long will that take?" I asked.
"We'll have the first review by end of week."
I was staying at my parents' house.
My mother had put clean sheets on my old bed and left a cup of tea on the nightstand without saying anything about it.
My father had sat across from me at the kitchen table the first night and held my hand for a long time without speaking.
On the third morning, Griffin called.
"She did it," he said.
"She called her attorney and started the process to contest Dad's will."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be." His voice was flat but not broken.
"I've been waiting for her to show me what she actually valued.
Now I know." A pause.
"My attorney says contesting it will take time and she probably won't win, but it'll be expensive and ugly.
She knows that.
She's doing it to punish me, not because she thinks she'll succeed."
"Griffin, I need to ask you something."
"Go ahead."
"Did you know about the marriage condition in your father's will?
The five-year clause?"
A long pause.
"Yes," he said.
"I've known for years."
"Did Callan know?"
"No.
Dad told me separately.
He said he was worried about Callan making decisions for the wrong reasons.
He wanted to make sure that if Callan married, it was real." His voice was careful.
"He didn't tell Mom either.
She found out when the estate attorney read the will."
"So she's known for four years that Callan needed to be married before the transfer date."
"Yes."
"And she's been managing that ever since."
"Every girlfriend.
Every relationship he had.
She found a way to end them before they got serious enough." He paused.
"Until you.
You two moved faster than she expected.
The engagement happened before she could stop it.
So she shifted strategy — keep the marriage intact on paper, keep you controlled, get through the six weeks, then find a way to end it on her terms after the transfer."
I sat down on the edge of my parents' couch.
"She needed the marriage," I said.
"But she needed me manageable inside it."
"Yes."
"And Brooklyn's job was to make sure I stayed that way."
He didn't answer immediately.
"I don't know how much Brooklyn understood," he said finally.
"She's always done what Mom wanted without needing to know all the reasons.
She enjoys it." His voice went quiet.
"That's the part that's hardest to say about my own sister."
My phone buzzed with a call waiting.
Carla.
"I have to go," I said.
"Thank you, Griffin."
"Anastasia." He stopped me.
"Callan called me last night.
After he talked to you.
He asked me about the will."
"What did you tell him?"
"Everything," Griffin said.
"All of it."
I switched to Carla's call.
"The footage review came back early," she said.
"They found something."
"What?"
"Fourteen months ago.
A dinner at the Harrington house.
There's a clear sequence — Brooklyn deliberately knocking a drink onto a woman seated next to her, then the woman reacting, then Brooklyn performing distress." Carla's voice was precise.
"The woman in the footage is a former colleague of Callan's.
She and Callan had been seeing each other informally for about two months before that dinner.
They stopped seeing each other the week after."
I closed my eyes.
"It's a pattern," I said.
"It's a documented pattern," Carla said.
"Which changes the legal picture considerably." A pause.
"There's one more thing.
Callan's hospital discharge papers were filed this morning.
He's been released." Another pause.
"He asked the discharge coordinator for your parents' address."
My stomach tightened.
"He's coming here?"
"That's what it looks like."
I looked at the front door of my parents' house.
"Carla," I said.
"Whatever he says when he gets here — is there anything I should not say back?"
"Tell the truth," she said.
"That's all.
May you like
Just tell the truth."
Twenty minutes later, a car pulled up outside.
