Chapter 7 - The Brother's Alibi
Mason Bennett did not answer his door on Monday afternoon because he was not at home.
Thanks to a quick check of his public Instagram account—where he regularly posted gym selfies and pictures of protein shakes alongside hashtags like *#HustleHard* and *#CeoMindset*—Marcus’s investigator tracked his leased Dodge Charger to the parking lot of an upscale fitness club on West End Avenue.
It was four o’clock when I pushed open the heavy glass doors of the gym.
The air smelled of ozone, rubber, and expensive eucalyptus spray. Mason was sitting at the juice bar near the entrance, wearing a fitted black tank top and wireless noise-canceling headphones, sipping a neon-green smoothie while scrolling through his phone.
He looked completely relaxed. Not a single line of worry on his forehead. Not an ounce of the frantic terror that had turned Linda into a shivering wreck outside the Vanderbilt pavilion three hours earlier. Linda hadn't called him. She was likely still wandering around West Nashville trying to figure out how to keep Brenda Higgins from being disbarred and fired.
I walked up to the high-top table and dropped a heavy, nine-by-twelve manila envelope directly onto the quartz counter, knocking his green smoothie sideways.
The plastic cup wobbled, splashing a dark green drop onto the screen of his iPhone.
“What the fuck?” Mason snapped, ripping his headphones off his ears and glaring up.
When he saw me, the rage on his face froze, replaced instantly by the smug, condescending sneer he had perfected over thirty-five years of unearned privilege.
“Claire,” he scoffed, grabbing a paper napkin to wipe his screen. “Are you stalking me now? Did Mom kick you out of the group chat?”
“Open the envelope, Mason,” I said.
I didn't sit down. I stood over him, my hands buried deep in the pockets of my trench coat, my posture stiff and unyielding.
“I’m not reading your financial spreadsheets, little sister,” he muttered, tossing the damp napkin aside. “I told you on Thursday: stop bringing your work home. If you want to talk about the family bills, we can talk when Dad feels better. Right now, I’m in the middle of a post-workout window.”
“Inside that envelope is the complete three-year transaction ledger for Bennett Logistics & Consulting LLC,” I said, my voice cutting through the thumping house music pulsing from the gym speakers. “Including the twenty-six thousand dollars you gambled away at the Horseshoe in Tunica. And the forty-eight-thousand-dollar commercial truck loan you defaulted on.”
Mason’s hand stopped halfway to his shaker bottle.
The color left his neck, retreating down beneath the collar of his tank top. His pupils dilated until the blue of his irises was almost invisible.
“Where... where did you get that?” he whispered.
“From the Tennessee Department of Revenue,” I replied. “And from First Heritage Bank’s commercial servicing division. You know what else is in that envelope, Mason? A copy of the forged Deed of Trust bearing my signature, stamped by Brenda Higgins.”
He didn't move. He didn't speak. He just stared at the thick manila envelope as if a live rattlesnake were coiled inside it.
“You’re thirty-five years old,” I said, every word dripping with pure contempt. “You’ve spent your entire adult life pretending you were too brilliant for regular work. But you’re not an entrepreneur, Mason. You’re a thief. You stole two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars of the equity Dad spent thirty years building with his bare hands. And then you let Mom put my name on the debt so you wouldn't have to face the consequences when the party ended.”
Suddenly, Mason let out a ragged, shaking laugh. He leaned back on his barstool, running a hand through his damp hair, his face twisting into something bitter, desperate, and ugly.
“You think I stole Dad’s equity?” he sneered, looking up at me with eyes full of venom. “You really are an idiot, Claire. You have all these degrees, you crunch numbers all day for the hospital, but you don't know a single goddamn thing about what actually happens in that house.”
“I know you’re broke,” I said. “And I know you’re facing five to ten years for commercial fraud.”
“Dad’s disability settlement cleared eighteen months ago,” Mason said flatly.
The music from the gym speakers seemed to drop to a distant, muffled hum.
The air in my throat turned to dry sand.
“What did you say?” I breathed.
“You heard me,” Mason hissed, leaning forward, his face inches from mine. “The state workers' compensation board approved the final lump-sum settlement in May of last year. Three hundred and forty thousand dollars. Cash. Tax-free.”
I gripped the edge of the quartz bar so hard my knuckles went white. “You’re lying.”
“Call his lawyer,” Mason whispered, his lips curling into a cruel, triumphant smirk. “Call old man Miller down on 4th Avenue. Dad got the check on May twelfth. Three hundred and forty grand. He took eighty thousand of it and bought an annuity that pays him three thousand a month in private income. The rest is sitting in a private wealth trust account at Pinnacle Bank. In Dad’s name only.”
My head spun. The gym floor seemed to tilt beneath my boots.
*May of last year.*
Eighteen months ago.
For eighteen months, Dad had sat in that brown leather recliner, looking weak, looking broken, holding his prescription bottles, telling me every Sunday night how hard it was to depend on his daughter for groceries... while sitting on three hundred and forty thousand dollars in liquid cash.
For eighteen months, I had forgone dental cleanings, delayed replacing my balding car tires, and stayed awake until two in the morning worrying if the heat would be shut off... while Daniel Bennett collected three thousand dollars a month in private interest and watched me transfer fourteen hundred and fifty dollars into an account to service his son’s gambling debts.
“Why?” I choked out, the word tearing out of my chest like shrapnel. “Why did you keep taking my money?”
Mason picked up his shaker bottle, took a long, slow sip, and looked at me with an expression of pure, unadulterated malice.
“Because Mom said you’d leave,” he whispered. “Mom said the second you found out Dad had money, you’d pack your bags, buy your own condo, and never look back. She said you thought you were better than all of us because you went to college. So as long as you thought we were drowning, you’d stay on the hook. You’d keep the house standing, you’d pay the bills, and Mason could build his business without having to touch Dad’s nest egg.”
He leaned in closer, his voice dropping to a gravelly, hateful purr.
May you like
“You were never our daughter, Claire. You were our insurance policy.”
***
