Chapter 3: What Brad Didn't Know I Already Had
I stared at Brad's name on the screen.
Mr.
Delgado watched me without speaking.
He didn't tell me to answer.
He didn't tell me to ignore it.
He just waited.
I let it ring.
Four rings.
Five.
Then silence.
Three seconds later, a text arrived.
*Patricia.
We need to talk before you meet with Delgado.
Call me back.
It's important.*
I turned the phone face-down on the desk and looked at Mr.
Delgado.
"He doesn't know I'm already here, does he."
"No," he said.
"He called my office yesterday asking to be included in any estate meetings.
I told him the process was being handled according to Frank's specific instructions."
"And what did he say to that?"
Mr.
Delgado's expression didn't change.
"He said Frank wasn't in his right mind during his final months."
The room went very quiet.
I set the USB drive down carefully.
"Is that something he's planning to pursue legally?"
"He retained an attorney four days after the funeral." He slid a second document across the desk — a letter on legal stationery.
"They sent this to my office yesterday morning.
They are contesting the updated estate plan on the grounds of diminished capacity."
I read the first paragraph.
Then the second.
My hands had stopped shaking.
Something colder had replaced the trembling.
"Frank updated his will eight months ago," I said.
"Yes."
"He was still driving himself to cardiac appointments eight months ago.
He was still cooking Sunday dinners.
He called me from the hardware store to ask which paint color I liked for the back fence." I looked up.
"He was not diminished."
"I know that," Mr.
Delgado said.
"And I have documentation that supports it.
Frank anticipated this challenge, Patricia.
That is part of why he prepared the box."
I picked up the USB drive again.
"Then I need to hear the recording."
He nodded and opened his laptop.
Frank's voice came through the speakers a moment later — unhurried, clear, exactly the way he sounded on an ordinary afternoon.
*"If you're hearing this, then I'm gone and the kids have already started making noise.
I want to say some things on record, while I'm still here to say them clearly."*
I pressed my fingers flat against the desk.
*"Eight months ago, I went to update my will.
Before I did, I had a conversation with Brad and Stephanie together, in this office, with Martin present.
I told them what I intended to do.
I told them Patricia would receive the house and the property outright, and that the financial accounts would be divided equally between the three of them — Patricia, Brad, and Stephanie.
I thought that was fair.
I thought they would accept it."*
A pause.
The sound of Frank shifting in his chair.
*"They did not accept it."*
Mr.
Delgado — Martin — reached over and paused the recording.
"I want to prepare you for the next section," he said.
"Frank was very calm when he recorded this.
But what he describes is not small."
"Play it," I said.
He pressed play.
*"Brad told me that if I left the house to Patricia, he and Stephanie would have her investigated.
He said they had already spoken to someone — a private investigator — and that they had enough to make her life very difficult.
He used the word 'exposed.' He said people in town would find out what kind of woman she really was."*
I didn't move.
*"There was nothing to find.
We both know that.
But that wasn't the point.
The point was the threat.
And I want it on record that I heard it, I understood it, and I made my decision anyway.
Patricia is my wife.
She has been my wife in every way that word means for eleven years.
What Brad and Stephanie did next — I'll let Martin explain that part.
He has the documentation."*
The recording ended.
I sat with my hands in my lap and looked at the wall behind Mr.
Delgado's head for a long moment.
"What did they do next?" I asked.
He opened a manila folder.
"They hired the investigator.
He found nothing, as Frank expected.
So they created something instead."
He turned the folder toward me.
Inside was a printed email chain — Brad's name at the top, a name I didn't recognize below it, and a series of messages dated fourteen months ago.
The subject line read: *Re: Patricia background — next steps.*
My phone buzzed again on the desk.
May you like
Brad, calling a second time.
I didn't look at it.
