Chapter 7 - BRENDA’S VERSION
Brenda requested to speak with me through attorneys.
I refused at first.
Then Rachel suggested listening might reveal information without requiring forgiveness or agreement.
The meeting occurred by video.
Brenda sat beside her lawyer.
No jewelry.
No floral dress.
The bruise from Preston’s slap had faded yellow.
She stared at the screen.
“You look fine.”
The sentence was so Brenda that I almost laughed.
“The baby is alive.”
“I know.”
“Are you disappointed?”
Her eyes flashed.
“No.”
“Then why did you hit her?”
“I hit you.”
“Do not separate my body from hers when it helps you.”
Brenda looked away.
She claimed she had been told the trust changes would leave Gary and her with nothing.
“By whom?”
“I’m not discussing that.”
“Then we’re done.”
“Wait.”
She said Mom had always intended me to control the family company.
Robert allegedly tried to keep things equal after her death.
Then Preston “came in with his judge money and acted like Reed money was dirty.”
Preston had never called it dirty.
He had called it opaque.
Brenda continued.
“You left us. Then you got married. Then you got pregnant. Every time you walk away, somehow you get more.”
“That explains jealousy. It doesn’t explain attacking a pregnancy.”
“I was told the baby would lock everything away.”
“Who told you?”
Silence.
“What were you promised?”
Her lawyer intervened.
Brenda answered anyway.
“Twenty percent.”
“Of what?”
“The company after restructuring.”
My pulse increased.
“Who had authority to promise that?”
She finally looked frightened.
“I thought they did.”
“They?”
A mistake.
Plural.
Her attorney stopped the interview.
Before the screen went dark, Brenda said:
“I wasn’t supposed to hit you that hard.”
There is no gentle version of striking a pregnant woman’s abdomen.
“What were you supposed to do?”
“Scare you.”
“Into what?”
The lawyer cut the connection.
Rachel leaned back.
“Useful.”
“I feel sick.”
“Also reasonable.”
Brenda had confirmed a planned confrontation and promised ownership without naming the person who promised it.
The next day, prosecutors amended the conspiracy investigation.
No new charges yet.
Evidence first.
Meanwhile, the trust court allowed us to inspect one additional schedule without full public unsealing.
It referenced a “birth-triggered independent accounting.”
That phrase explained Robert’s urgency about disclosure.
The accounting would review all trustee transactions since Elaine’s death.
Robert had signed every annual statement.
If everything was legitimate, an audit should not terrify him.
Rachel ordered independent tracing of distributions already visible.
Millions had moved from trust accounts into Reed Strategic Continuity.
More moved into companies owned by Robert’s longtime business partners.
One payment bought a vacation property Robert said belonged to the company.
The title belonged to a private LLC controlled by him.
“Is that theft?”
“Not automatically,” Rachel said. “Could be authorized compensation, investment, loan, or self-dealing. We need documents.”
I had begun to appreciate why prosecutors used boring words.
They slowed anger enough for facts to survive it.
Gary found another recording.
This one was not from the lunch.
Three months earlier, Brenda had left a voice memo running during an argument with Robert.
Her voice:
Why does Audrey’s baby matter more than us?
Robert:
Because your mother wrote the trust when she was angry.
Brenda:
Then change it.
Robert:
I can’t while Audrey’s line remains eligible.
The recording ended there.
May you like
My father knew exactly what my pregnancy changed.
He had lied in my hospital room.
