Chapter 5 - A Brother With a Price
Julian called me at seven that evening.
By then the ceremony banners had been taken down and the courtyard was empty.
I was sitting with Paige in the academy visitor lounge, still wearing the uniform that had made my father furious.
"I need to see you alone," he said.
"No," I answered.
"Audrey, I'm serious."
"So am I. Paige stays."
He agreed to meet in a brightly lit coffee shop near campus.
Evelyn arranged for an investigator to remain nearby, and I let campus security know where I was going.
Julian arrived twenty minutes late, without the expensive watch.
His face looked younger without the arrogance he usually wore.
"Dad's going to say I took everything," he told me.
I waited.
"He made the transfers, but some of the accounts have my name."
"Did you spend the money?"
He stared at the table.
"Yes."
For a moment all I could think about was every night I'd gone to bed hungry.
"Did you know it was mine?"
He wiped his hands on a paper napkin.
"At first, no. Later, I guessed."
He claimed our father offered him a condominium and business financing if he signed statements confirming I had been dismissed from Westbridge.
When he refused the first time, my mother told him the entire family could lose the estate.
When he eventually signed, they began using his bank accounts as channels for education-fund withdrawals.
"You had choices," I said.
"I know."
His admission did not make him innocent.
It made him potentially useful.
Julian pushed a small memory card across the table.
"I copied Dad's office camera files before he wiped the recorder."
Evelyn had warned me never to open unknown files on my personal computer.
I left the card untouched.
"What do they show?"
"Kessler visiting the house with the notary."
"Which notary?"
Julian's eyes moved toward the window.
"A woman named Serena Vale."
He said Serena notarized the certificate while I was hundreds of miles away.
She had once worked in Kessler's office.
My father had promised her a payment after the trust distribution.
I asked why Julian was helping now.
He looked at the empty place on his wrist.
"Dad took my watch and told me the apartment was going next."
I almost laughed.
"You were willing to let them erase me, but you came here because he threatened your apartment?"
His expression tightened.
"That's not fair."
"Neither was being hungry while you drove a car I paid for."
He flinched.
For the first time, he did not ask me to soften my words.
Then he reached into his jacket and unfolded a photograph.
It showed my grandfather in a wheelchair outside his house, with Helen Marsh standing beside him.
The date on the back was a week after my father claimed Granddad had lost all awareness.
"I took it," Julian said.
"Grandpa asked me to give it to you if anything happened."
"Why didn't you?"
"Mom found it. I stole it back."
He looked almost ashamed.
"There's writing under the frame."
I turned the photograph over.
In my grandfather's familiar handwriting were four words.
May you like
Ask who changed February.
