Chapter 11 - MY BROTHER'S PRICE
Julian wanted to meet in the parking lot of a closed garden center.
Rachel changed the location to her office.
Julian refused.
Nora suggested a hotel conference room with cameras and public access.
Julian refused that too.
Finally, he chose a twenty-four-hour diner near Interstate 95.
Rachel agreed only after she arranged for Nora to sit two booths away.
Maya decided not to come.
"I don't want to see him unless I have to," she said.
"Not yet."
I understood.
Julian arrived twenty minutes late wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses after dark.
He looked ridiculous.
He also looked terrified.
He slid into the booth across from me.
"You bring a lawyer?"
"No."
"Investigator?"
I glanced toward Nora's booth.
"Yes."
Julian cursed.
"I told you alone."
"You lost the privilege of alone when you blocked my wife inside a house."
He looked down.
A waitress approached.
Julian ordered coffee.
I ordered nothing.
When she left, he pulled a folded document from his jacket.
"This is the guarantee."
I did not touch it.
"Give it to Rachel."
"No."
"Not until we have a deal."
"Then keep it."
He stared at me.
"You don't care what happens to me?"
"You want the answer as your brother or as the person whose company you stole?"
His face tightened.
"You always have to win."
"This isn't winning."
"My wife is afraid to sleep in her own bed."
"My company almost missed payroll."
"Our house was pledged to a lender without our consent."
"If you are looking for sympathy because the fraud might also cost you money, you came to the wrong booth."
Julian looked toward the window.
"I didn't know about the bruises."
"You caused some of them."
"I grabbed her."
"Once."
"Twice."
"I didn't do the other stuff."
My hands went still on the table.
"Other stuff?"
He realized he had said too much.
"Mom lost her temper."
"How many times?"
"I don't know."
"You were there."
"Not always."
"How many times did you see her hurt Maya?"
Julian stared at his coffee when it arrived.
"Three."
The word felt heavier than the entire loan agreement.
"And what did you do?"
"Nothing."
At least he did not lie.
I leaned back.
"Then don't tell me you didn't know."
His eyes filled with anger.
"I was scared of her too."
"You were twenty-eight years old."
"You think that matters?"
"She has controlled me my whole life."
"Every time I tried something, she funded it."
"Every time it failed, she paid the debt."
"Every time I tried to walk away, she reminded me what I owed her."
I looked at him.
"And when she gave you my company, you stopped feeling controlled."
He looked away.
"For a while."
There was the truth.
He had been manipulated.
He had also enjoyed the manipulation when it benefited him.
Both things could be true.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"Immunity."
I almost laughed.
"I don't have immunity to give."
"You can tell the police I helped."
"If you help."
"I am helping."
"You brought one page."
"I know where Preston keeps the original documents."
"His office safe."
"You said that already."
Julian lowered his voice.
"I know the code."
"That does not give us the right to open it."
He looked frustrated.
"Then what good am I?"
"That is a question you should have asked before becoming owner of JVC."
He pushed the folded guarantee toward me.
"Read the bottom."
I unfolded it.
The signature looked like Julian's.
The document guaranteed all JVC obligations personally and waived several protections.
A separate indemnity required Julian to reimburse Victoria Cole for losses arising from the transaction.
I looked up.
"You signed this?"
"I signed a signature page."
"Preston said it was a standard management acknowledgment."
"Did you read what was attached?"
"There was nothing attached."
I stared at him.
The same tactic used on Maya had been used on Julian.
Different pressure.
Same machinery.
"Do you have proof the page was separate?"
"Maybe."
"What does maybe mean?"
"Mom's assistant scanned the signature page before Preston picked it up."
"I saw the email."
"Can you get it?"
"Maybe."
I sighed.
"You need a lawyer who represents only you."
"Not Preston."
"Not Mother's lawyer."
"Not company counsel."
Julian stared at me.
"Will you pay for one?"
I actually laughed then.
He looked offended.
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
"Sell one of the luxury cars you bought with money transferred through JVC."
His face reddened.
"Those are leased."
"Of course they are."
For a moment, the old dynamic returned.
Older brother.
Younger brother.
Different definitions of responsibility.
Then Julian said something that erased the humor.
"Mom has a recording of Maya."
I stopped.
"What recording?"
"A confession."
"To what?"
"Taking the money."
I felt cold.
"Maya never confessed."
"I know."
"Then what is it?"
Julian rubbed his face.
"They made her repeat sentences."
"When?"
"About a month ago."
"Mom told her she was helping prepare a statement for the bank."
"Preston asked questions."
"They cut the answers together."
My hands curled under the table.
"Where is the recording?"
"Preston has the edited one."
"I have the raw file."
I stared at him.
"Why?"
"Because Mom told me to delete the camera archive."
"I copied it first."
"Why?"
He looked embarrassed.
"Insurance."
That sounded like our family.
Even while betraying one another, everyone kept evidence.
"Give it to Rachel."
"Deal first."
"No."
"Danny."
"No."
"You want to help yourself, start by doing one thing without being paid for it."
His face hardened.
"Easy for you to say."
"Nothing has been easy since I came home."
I stood.
"Send the file to your lawyer."
"Have your lawyer contact Rachel."
"Then tell investigators the truth."
"All of it."
"If that helps you later, good."
"But I am not buying your conscience."
I walked toward the door.
Julian called after me.
"She has something on you too."
I stopped.
Nora looked up from her booth.
"What?"
Julian stood.
"Your deployment records."
"What about them?"
"She got copies from someone."
"She has medical notes."
"Counseling notes."
My stomach turned.
I had attended mandatory post-deployment screenings during previous rotations.
Some records included sleep problems after a difficult mission years earlier.
They were private.
They were also easy to distort.
"How did she get them?"
"I don't know."
"Preston said he had a source."
"What source?"
"He called him Colonel Mercer."
I stared at Julian.
Colonel Stephen Mercer had signed one of my deployment evaluations four years earlier.
He had retired since then.
He also happened to sit on the advisory board of a security contractor partially owned by Wellington Meridian.
The conspiracy had just reached backward into a part of my life I had believed was separate from all of this.
Julian watched my face.
"Now do we have a deal?"
"No."
"But now you have a lawyer problem."
I walked out.
Nora followed.
In the parking lot, she looked at me.
"You okay?"
"No."
"Good."
"People who say yes after a conversation like that usually make bad decisions."
My phone vibrated.
A message from Maya.
PLEASE COME BACK WHEN YOU CAN.
Then another.
VICTORIA RELEASED A VIDEO.
Then a link.
I opened it.
Maya appeared on screen sitting at our dining table.
Her face was pale.
Preston's voice came from off camera.
"Did you authorize the transfers?"
The video cut.
Maya answered.
"Yes."
Another cut.
"Did Daniel know?"
Maya's voice.
"No."
Another cut.
"Did you benefit personally?"
Maya looked down.
"Yes."
The clip ended with text across the screen.
MAYA COLE ADMITS SECRET TRANSFERS WHILE HUSBAND WAS DEPLOYED.
It already had more than thirty thousand views.
Nora watched beside me.
"That is going to spread."
"Yes."
"Can Julian prove it was edited?"
I looked back through the diner window.
My brother was still sitting in the booth alone.
"He says he has the raw file."
Nora nodded toward the door.
"Then maybe you should buy his conscience after all."
I shook my head.
"No."
May you like
"He gives it because it is true."
"Or he lives with what the lie does next."
