The USB clicked into the laptop while I was driving across the bridge, and for one strange second, all I could hear was the wind rushing through my open windows.
Then Dylan’s voice came through Brooke’s phone.
“Come on,” he said, loud and amused.
“Put it on the big screen.
If Paige drove all this way to embarrass herself, everyone deserves to enjoy it.”
Someone near him laughed.
Brooke didn’t.
“Paige,” she said quietly into the phone, “what is this?”
I tightened my grip on the steering wheel.
“It’s for you,” I said.
“Open the folder marked READ FIRST.”
Behind her, Dylan made a theatrical groan.
“She probably made a presentation about how nobody appreciates her.”
My mother told him not to be cruel, but she was laughing when she said it.
I heard the scrape of chairs as guests moved closer to the screen that had been set up for a slideshow of Dylan and Brooke’s relationship.
Dylan had apparently decided my gift would make a perfect bonus performance.
That decision saved me from ever having to expose him myself.
Brooke opened the folder.
The first file wasn’t a contract or a bank statement.
Ryan had created a one-page summary written in plain language.
It identified the waterfront property deal, the eight-million-dollar value, the shell company that had received the diverted funds, and the seven documents bearing Brooke’s forged signature.
Brooke stopped breathing for a moment.
I could hear it through the phone—the sudden absence of sound where her voice should have been.
“What does it say?” Dylan asked.
She didn’t answer.
He moved closer to the laptop.
I heard his shoes strike the temporary dance floor, then the rustle of someone reaching across the table.
“Brooke?” he said again.
This time, the confidence had slipped from his voice.
She read the final sentence aloud.
“Digital records indicate the signatures were created and submitted from a device registered to Dylan Ari.”
The party went silent.
Not quiet.
Silent.
Even through a phone connection, I could feel 120 people turning toward my brother.
Dylan recovered quickly.
He always did.
He laughed once and called the report ridiculous.
“It’s fake,” he said.
“Paige knows some numbers guy from college.
She’s been jealous of us since the engagement.”
“Ryan Caldwell,” Brooke said.
“What?”
“That’s the accountant’s name.”
Dylan said nothing.
I heard Brooke click another file.
The big screen changed.
Guests later told me it displayed two versions of the same agreement side by side.
One contained Brooke’s genuine signature from an earlier document.
The other showed the signature submitted for the Bar Harbor transaction.
To an untrained eye, they looked almost identical.
Ryan’s analysis highlighted the differences: the unnatural repetition in the pen strokes, the exact duplication of pressure patterns, and metadata showing that the second signature had been inserted electronically.
The file also showed when it happened.
Brooke had been attending a charity dinner in Boston at the time.
Dylan’s laptop had been connected to the Wentworth compound’s private network in Bar Harbor.
My father cleared his throat.
