Chapter 6 - My Brother’s Last LieMatthew denied everything.
At first.
When I called him and asked about the flash drive, he went silent long enough for me to know Lily was telling the truth.
Then he said:
“Meet me alone.”
“No.”
“Danny, please.”
“Police are already involved.”
“If you bring them, I’m finished.”
“That’s not my problem anymore.”
“It will be when you find out what’s on that drive.”
Brooks arranged the meeting.
Matthew believed I came alone.
In reality, federal agents were nearby.
We met at an abandoned equipment yard behind one of our old warehouses.
Matthew stood beside his truck.
He looked ten years older than he had a week earlier.
“Where’s the drive?”
“First tell me Lily’s okay.”
“She’s terrified.”
“I never wanted that.”
“You brought Patricia into our lives.”
“She was already in your life.”
“Into the company.”
He looked away.
I stepped closer.
“You knew more than you admitted.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“A lot.”
The word hurt.
“Start talking.”
Matthew opened his truck and sat on the tailgate.
“Three years ago, I found a weird payment.”
“To whom?”
“Hale Consulting.”
Victor.
“How much?”
“Eight thousand.”
“For what?”
“No invoice.”
“Who authorized it?”
He looked at me.
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Patricia asked me.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Of course she did.”
“She told me it was related to estate planning for Rachel and that you knew about it.”
“You believed her?”
“She was your mother-in-law.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I owed money.”
“How much?”
“Back then? About ninety grand.”
My stomach twisted.
“She found out?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
I did.
Patricia discovered weaknesses.
Then bought access.
“She offered to help.”
“In exchange for?”
“At first, little things. Vendor information. Copies of contracts.”
“Then?”
“Bank access.”
I stared at my brother.
“You gave her our login?”
“Not directly.”
“What does that mean?”
“I created a secondary user account.”
“You lied when you said read-only.”
“Yes.”
I wanted to hit him.
I didn’t.
“Why?”
“Because I was drowning.”
“So you drowned us instead?”
His eyes filled.
“I thought she was shifting money temporarily.”
“Four hundred thousand dollars?”
“I didn’t know it became that much.”
“Bull.”
“It’s true.”
“What’s on the drive?”
Matthew reached underneath the truck’s floor mat.
Nothing.
His face changed.
“It was here.”
“What?”
“The drive.”
I grabbed his shirt.
“Where is it?”
“I swear!”
Footsteps sounded behind us.
Agents moved in.
Matthew raised his hands.
He didn’t resist.
They searched the truck.
No drive.
But they found something else.
A GPS tracker.
Not attached underneath.
Hidden inside the cab.
Someone had been tracking him.
Matthew stared at it.
“She knows.”
“Knows what?”
“I copied everything.”
“What everything?”
“Patricia’s financial files.”
“You had access?”
“She made me help move money. I copied records because I knew eventually she’d blame me.”
The irony was almost unbearable.
Everyone around Patricia apparently knew she would eventually betray them.
They just kept cooperating until it happened.
“Where’s the copy?”
“That drive.”
“Which is missing.”
“Yes.”
“Who knew?”
“Patricia.”
“Anybody else?”
Matthew hesitated.
“Victor.”
Of course.
Agents took Matthew in.
He eventually agreed to cooperate.
That evening, I finally saw Lily.
I dropped to my knees when she ran toward me.
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too.”
“Are you mad?”
“What?”
“Because I touched Grandma’s things.”
My chest broke.
“No.”
I held her shoulders.
“You did nothing wrong.”
“But Grandma said—”
“Grandma lied.”
Lily looked at me.
“Adults can lie?”
“All the time.”
“Even grandmas?”
“Even grandmas.”
She thought about that.
“Is she bad?”
Hard question.
I chose the truthful answer.
“She did bad things.”
“To Mommy?”
“Yes.”
“To you?”
“Yes.”
“To Uncle Matt?”
“Yes.”
Lily nodded.
Then she walked to her backpack.
She opened the small front pocket.
My heart stopped.
She pulled out a red flash drive.
“Lily.”
“I took it.”
I stared.
“From Matt’s truck?”
She shook her head.
“Grandma’s coat.”
Rachel came closer.
“What?”
“The day she grabbed me.”
Lily held it out.
“This is the one she was looking for.”
Everything clicked.
There had been two red drives.
The first one in Patricia’s purse.
The second Lily had taken before Patricia pinned her to the floor.
“Why did you say it was in Uncle Matt’s truck?”
“Grandma made me promise not to tell anybody I had it.”
“But you told us about the truck.”
She nodded.
“Because I heard Grandma tell somebody on the phone that Uncle Matt had another one.”
Rachel knelt beside her.
“So where did you hide this?”
“In my backpack.”
For days.
The evidence Patricia had assaulted my daughter to recover had been sitting inside a unicorn backpack covered in glitter.
We called Brooks.
The drive was encrypted.
This one opened with a password recovered from Thomas’s journal.
Inside was a complete ledger.
Names.
Dates.
Accounts.
Transactions stretching back more than twenty years.
Patricia and Victor had siphoned money from Thomas, Rachel, our company, Christopher, business partners and even elderly acquaintances.
Millions.
There were also audio recordings.
Patricia apparently recorded everyone.
Insurance.
One recording captured her talking to Victor three weeks earlier.
Her voice came through the speakers.
“When Daniel discovers the company losses, we give him Rachel. The account already points to her.”
Victor replied:
“And if the child saw you moving the documents?”
“She’s nine.”
“What if she talks?”
Patricia laughed.
“Children can be frightened into silence.”
I had to leave the room.
Because hearing someone casually discuss terrorizing my daughter was worse than seeing it.
The recording continued.
Then Victor said something none of us expected.
“What about Matthew?”
Patricia answered:
“He’ll confess eventually.”
“And Christopher?”
“He already believes Rachel stole his inheritance.”
Rachel closed her eyes.
The family had not simply drifted apart.
Patricia had engineered it.
One child against another.
Husband against wife.
Brother against brother.
All while stealing from everyone.
Brooks stopped the recording.
“This changes things.”
“How?”
“We can indict.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
But Patricia was still missing.
And at 6:12 the following morning, we discovered why she had returned to town.
Someone set fire to the old Keller warehouse.
Inside that warehouse were twenty years of archived financial records.
By the time firefighters arrived, half the building was burning.
Security footage showed a figure entering at 4:03 a.m.
Gray hood.
Gloves.
But when the person turned toward the camera, Rachel gasped.
It wasn’t Patricia.
It wasn’t Victor.
May you like
It was her brother.
Christopher.
Related Stories
