Chapter 6 - The Curbside Autopsy
The Texas sun climbed mercilessly above the manicured live oaks of River Oaks, baking the asphalt until waves of heat shimmered over the curb where Brandon Reeves sat among the wreckage of his former life.
Beside him on the grass lay three decades of accumulated vanity. Italian leather luggage scuffed by the gravel. Tailored suits still in dry-cleaning plastic, tossed carelessly across an antique Persian rug that was already accumulating lawn dust. An open case of vintage cuff links gleamed in the glare, looking absurdly cheap beneath the vast, indifferent sky.
Across the street, Mrs. Prescott had lowered her shears. She had summoned her maid to bring her an iced tea on the patio, positioning her wrought-iron chair for an unobstructed view of the spectacle. Two doors down, the junior partner at Morgan Stanley—a man Brandon had sneered at during the neighborhood HOA meeting three weeks ago—drove past in his silver Porsche, slowed to a crawl, stared directly into Brandon’s hollow eyes, and accelerated away with a sharp hiss of rubber.
"Brandon."
The voice was not tearful anymore. It was razor-sharp, stripped clean of the honeyed, melodic cadence Amber used when guests were within earshot.
Brandon turned his head slowly. His neck felt stiff, the muscles in his jaw aching from the clenched fury that had sustained him for the last three hours.
Amber stood over him, her arms folded tightly beneath her chest. She had stopped crying. Her mascara had been wiped away with a tissue, leaving faint charcoal smudges beneath her cheekbones. Her eyes were bright, dry, and cold as river stones.
"Get up off the dirt," she said.
"Amber, shut up," Brandon muttered, staring at the pavement between his Italian loafers. "Just… shut up for five minutes while I think."
"Think?" Her laugh was high, brittle, and vicious. "You’ve had thirty years to think, and you didn't even know who owned the house we slept in! Do you have any idea what’s happening right now? Do you realize who is watching us?"
"I said be quiet!" Brandon snapped, lunging to his feet. His hands were shaking. The knuckles of his right hand were bruised and swollen—the flesh purple and tender from the thirty blows he had rained upon his father’s face twelve hours earlier. The physical pain in his hand was nothing compared to the violent vertigo spinning through his skull. "My phone has five percent battery. I need to call Vance. I need to call the equity partners at Blackwood."
"Derek Sterling fired you, Brandon," she said, her voice dropping to a flat, venomous whisper that cut deeper than any shout. "I was standing right next to you. I heard him through the speaker. You’re done. Your title is gone. That firm was your entire identity, and Derek dropped you like a dead rat."
"It's a misunderstanding!" Brandon shouted, his voice cracking, loud enough to make the sheriff’s deputy leaning against the cruiser look over with mild amusement. Brandon lowered his tone instantly, his face flushing scarlet. "It’s leverage. That’s all this is. The old man is playing a game because I lost my temper. He’s theatrical. He built bridges and highways, Amber; he thinks in terms of bulldozers and shock tactics. He just wants me to crawl."
"Then crawl," she whispered, stepping into his space, her eyes narrowing until they were slits of pure malice. "If crawling gets this gate unlocked, get on your knees and crawl all the way to whatever miserable retirement shack he lives in. Because I am not sleeping in a motel, Brandon. I am not putting my clothes in the trunk of a car like white trash."
"He hit me first," Brandon lied, the words tasting like copper and ash in his mouth.
Amber looked at him, and for the first time in five years of marriage, she didn't offer the validating nod he always demanded. She looked at him with naked disgust.
"He didn't touch you," she said coldly. "You pushed him into the console table, and when he told you the truth, you lost your mind. I watched you do it. You hit a sixty-eight-year-old man thirty times while he stood there and took it."
"You smiled!" Brandon roared, stepping toward her, his chest heaving. "Don't play the saint now! You sat on the sofa with your wine and you smiled while I did it! You whispered in my ear that he needed to be taught his place!"
"Because I thought you were the one holding the checkbook!" she snarled back, baring her teeth. "I thought you were the owner! I thought you had the power! I didn't marry a little boy who was playing house on his daddy’s allowance!"
The silence that followed was suffocating.
The moving truck pulled away with a heavy rumble of diesel exhaust, its tailgate locked, carrying away the staging furniture and the high-value artwork that had been cataloged under Redwood Capital LLC’s corporate asset schedule. The movers hadn’t even looked at them on their way out.
The deputy tapped his watch, walked over to his patrol vehicle, and opened the driver’s door. "Folks," he called out across the lawn, not even bothering to adjust his sunglasses, "you’ve got twenty minutes to clear your personal property off the easement. City ordinance doesn't permit curbside salvage dumps in residential zones after two o'clock. Anything left behind gets tagged by municipal sanitation."
"Salvage dump," Amber echoed, her voice trembling now with an entirely different kind of rage. She looked down at her three Louis Vuitton trunks, the garment bags, the scattered silver frames holding pictures of their wedding in Cabo San Lucas.
Brandon reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. Four percent.
He dialed Marcus Vance’s direct line.
Marcus was Franklin Reeves’s personal attorney and had been for thirty-five years. He had drafted Brandon’s first trust fund documents when Brandon was seven. He had handled Brandon’s speeding tickets in college, smoothed over an ugly fraternity scandal at UT Austin, and facilitated the corporate paperwork when Brandon joined Blackwood Capital.
The line clicked on the second ring.
"Marcus," Brandon gasped, his composure completely dissolving. "Marcus, thank God. Listen to me. You have to stop this. The sheriff is here. They put my things on the lawn. Derek Sterling locked my email. The old man has completely lost his mind—he sold the house out from under us!"
"Good afternoon, Brandon," Marcus Vance’s voice came through the receiver, calm, measured, and dry as parchment. There was the faint sound of papers shuffling in the background.
"Marcus, talk to him," Brandon pleaded, dropping all pretense of authority, clutching the phone against his ear with two hands. "He’s committing financial suicide. He sold the River Oaks property for pennies, I know he did, just to spite me! The market value alone is eight million! We can file an emergency injunction on the sale. We can claim diminished capacity—he’s sixty-eight, he was bleeding last night, we can tell the judge he’s mentally unfit—"
"Franklin Reeves is currently sitting across from me, Brandon," Vance said smoothly.
Brandon’s breath caught in his throat. His chest seized.
"Put him on," Brandon whispered. "Put him on the phone right now."
"No," Vance replied.
"Marcus, I am his son! His only son!"
"And under the laws of the State of Texas, as well as the governing operating agreements of Redwood Capital LLC, your filial relationship confers zero legal claim upon corporate assets," Vance said. His voice was clinical, stripped of any professional courtesy. "I am calling to inform you of three specific realities, Brandon. Please listen carefully, as your battery appears to be dying and I will not repeat myself."
Amber was leaning in, her ear pressed near the phone, her breath hitching.
"First," Vance stated, "the sale of 4122 River Oaks Boulevard was finalized and recorded with the Harris County clerk at twelve-fourteen this afternoon. The buyer is an institutional holding company based in Delaware. The funds have been wired, verified, and settled. The property is no longer yours, nor is it your father’s. You are trespassing on private commercial property."
"Second," Vance continued, ignoring the choked sound escaping Brandon’s throat, "the Blackwood Capital senior management committee has officially terminated your employment for cause, citing gross moral turpitude, breach of fiduciary confidence, and conduct detrimental to the firm’s reputation. Your discretionary equity stake in the secondary growth fund has been frozen pending a full forensic audit of your expense accounts, specifically the eight hundred and forty thousand dollars you drew against Franklin Reeves’s personal credit facilities over the past eighteen months."
Brandon felt the ground tilt beneath his feet. "He... he authorized those draws. He never questioned them."
"He reviewed them every quarter," Vance said softly. "He allowed you enough rope, Brandon. You chose the length. And third: Redwood Capital has terminated its corporate lease agreements on your two personal vehicles. The 2023 Mercedes G-Wagon and the Porsche Panamera parked in that driveway are registered to Redwood Fleet Logistics. A recovery crew has already been dispatched. They should arrive within the hour."
"Marcus, please," Brandon whimpered, tears cutting hot, shameful tracks down his grime-streaked cheeks. "I have no cash on hand. Everything I have is in Blackwood stock and our checking accounts—"
"The joint operational accounts tied to Redwood Capital have been closed," Vance said. "Your personal checking account at Chase holds a balance of four thousand, two hundred and twelve dollars. I suggest you locate temporary lodging. Do not attempt to contact Franklin. If you approach his home or any job site managed by Reeves Heavy Civil, an emergency protective order will be filed immediately, supported by the medical evaluation from the Methodist Hospital emergency room where your father was treated at six this morning for a fractured zygomatic arch and three facial lacerations."
"He went to the hospital?" Brandon croaked.
"He went to the hospital, he received eleven stitches, and he preserved the evidence," Vance replied coldly. "You have thirty minutes before the tow trucks arrive, Brandon. Good day."
The line went dead.
Brandon’s phone screen flashed once, displaying the low battery warning, and faded into permanent black.
He stood frozen, the dead rectangle of glass and aluminum clutched in his hand.
A shadow fell over him. Amber was staring at him, her lips parted in disbelief. She had heard enough.
"The cars?" she whispered.
Before Brandon could answer, the deep, mechanical whine of a flatbed tow truck echoed from the corner of the boulevard. Around the bend came two black wreckers, their amber roof lights flashing rhythmically in the Texas sunshine.
Amber didn't scream. She didn't cry.
She reached down, grabbed her two smallest leather bags containing her jewelry and passports, and walked toward the street.
"Where are you going?" Brandon yelled, lunging after her, grabbing her wrist. "Amber! Where are you going?"
She ripped her arm out of his grasp with such violence that his bruised fingers screamed in agony.
"Don't you ever touch me again," she spat, her voice shaking with disgust. "Call an Uber, Brandon. If you have enough credit left to pay for one."
May you like
She pulled out her phone, tapped the screen, and walked briskly down the sidewalk, her designer heels clicking sharply against the concrete, leaving Brandon Reeves standing alone beside a mountain of luggage on the lawn he no longer owned.
***
