Chapter 3 - BRANDON STARTED SPENDING MONEY HE DIDN’T HAVE YET
Brandon held my memorial service Friday afternoon.
I did not attend.
Monica was right.
I could barely stand long enough to shower.
My son, Lucas James Bennett, was still in the NICU.
No funeral was worth leaving him.
Instead, investigators watched.
Not secretly inside the service without authority.
Public areas.
Witness statements.
Financial movements.
And, most useful of all—
Brandon’s own mouth.
The symbolic coffin was dark walnut.
Closed.
Empty.
My photograph stood beside it.
Flowers surrounded the altar.
Gretchen wore black.
So did Brandon.
People later told investigators how strange it looked.
Not because Gretchen attended.
Because she stood with family.
Beside Brandon.
As though she were already stepping into the position my supposed death had created.
My mother’s sister, Aunt Rebecca, noticed.
She also noticed something else.
When people approached Brandon with condolences, he repeatedly said:
“At least Emily and the baby didn’t suffer long.”
But nobody had told him that.
Investigators had never released details about my fall.
He was the only person who knew how long I might have remained conscious after he pushed me.
A small thing.
Not proof.
But another inconsistency.
Then Gretchen made a bigger mistake.
During the reception, she told one guest:
“Brandon tried everything to keep Emily off that trail.”
The problem?
Brandon’s original statement said I insisted on hiking despite his objections.
But messages recovered later from our travel account showed the opposite.
I had texted him that morning:
Weather looks bad. Can we stay near the lodge?
Brandon:
Stop worrying. We came all this way. We’re hiking.
The lies were accumulating.
Then money started moving.
Two days after the memorial, Brandon contacted our company counsel about activating voting rights over my shares.
Again—
too fast.
He also attempted to draw on a $12 million line of credit secured partly by interests that were still legally mine.
The bank refused until my status was clarified.
Brandon became furious.
That fury created emails.
Emails created evidence.
Gretchen wrote:
You said this would be finished by now.
Brandon replied:
It will. Once the declaration is done, everything changes.
Declaration.
Presumed death.
Insurance.
Shares.
Control.
Monica showed me the messages after investigators obtained them through lawful process.
I read them while sitting beside Lucas’s incubator.
His tiny chest rose and fell under a clear plastic enclosure.
I touched his hand through the access port.
“He wanted this.”
Monica said nothing.
“He wanted all of it.”
The money.
The company.
The freedom.
Gretchen.
Then I noticed another message.
From Gretchen:
What about the doctor?
Brandon:
Handled. Nobody connects it.
I looked at Monica.
“What doctor?”
“We don’t know yet.”
That frightened me more than the insurance.
Because pregnancy had involved dozens of doctors.
Then I remembered one.
Dr. Colin Hart.
A private obstetric consultant Brandon insisted we use during my third trimester.
He claimed Hart specialized in “high-value privacy cases.”
I hated the phrase.
But Brandon arranged everything.
Hart had recommended the Montana trip.
“Fresh air.”
“Walking.”
“Low-impact activity.”
My regular obstetrician had been more cautious.
I had ignored her because Brandon said she worried too much.
My stomach turned.
“Check Hart.”
Monica’s expression told me they already were.
And what they found changed the case again.
Dr. Hart had received $180,000 in consulting fees from a company owned by Brandon.
Not illegal by itself.
Except none of the consulting work could immediately be identified.
Then investigators found a message Hart sent Brandon three days before the trip:
From a purely medical standpoint, cold exposure and trauma in late pregnancy would dramatically complicate survivability. I am not comfortable discussing this further.
My skin went cold.
Brandon replied:
Understood. Delete this.
Hart had not participated in the attack.
Evidence did not show that.
But Brandon had asked questions disturbing enough that the doctor became uncomfortable.
Hart eventually contacted his own attorney and cooperated.
He admitted Brandon had repeatedly asked hypothetical questions about pregnancy trauma, delayed rescue, and whether a fall in extreme cold could be mistaken for accidental death.
Hart claimed he never understood Brandon was planning violence until the news broke.
Maybe true.
Investigators would decide.
Then Hart gave them one more piece.
Brandon once asked:
“If a pregnant woman fell thirty or forty feet onto snow, would there be any realistic chance both mother and baby survive?”
I stared at Lucas.
The answer was breathing in front of me.
Yes.
Against the odds—
yes.
Brandon had done research.
Planned insurance.
Chosen terrain.
Built the accident story.
He had simply made one mistake.
May you like
He thought statistics were guarantees.
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