Chapter 10 - The Other Brooke
Her real name was Allison Grant.
Twenty-four.
Ohio.
No relation to us.
Gary had recruited her through a fake “document signing” job.
At least that was her first story.
Then investigators showed her the trust amount.
She started talking.
Gary promised her $50,000.
Her role was simple.
Pretend to be me.
Show fake identification.
Appear before a notary.
Sign beneficiary documents.
She had already done it twice.
“Did she know I was seventeen?” I asked Rebecca.
“Yes.”
“Did she know the money belonged to me?”
“Eventually.”
That mattered.
Allison wasn’t innocent.
But she wasn’t the architect.
Gary was.
Then came the hardest part.
Allison had met Mom.
I stared.
“What?”
Mom looked horrified.
“No.”
Allison identified her photograph.
“She was at the diner.”
Mom shook her head.
“I never met her.”
Rebecca checked dates.
The diner meeting happened five months earlier.
Mom’s credit card showed a purchase there.
My stomach dropped.
I turned.
“You were there.”
Mom pressed a hand to her mouth.
Then memory clicked.
She had met Gary at the diner.
He brought “a friend.”
Mom claimed she did not know Allison was impersonating me.
But Allison remembered something.
“Gary said, ‘She looks enough like Brooke.’”
Mom heard that.
Did nothing.
I stared at her.
“You heard him.”
She cried.
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t ask why?”
“I was afraid.”
There it was again.
Fear.
Always.
I loved my mother.
But love was no longer enough to make me pretend fear excused everything.
“You let him build another version of me.”
“I know.”
“You let him hurt Ethan.”
“I know.”
“You told me my father was dead.”
“I know.”
“Then stop saying you were afraid like that ends the conversation.”
Mom broke.
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“Say you chose wrong.”
Silence.
Then:
“I chose wrong.”
For the first time, that felt honest.
Not enough.
But honest.
Meanwhile, Michael gave a DNA sample.
So did I.
Not because I doubted the birth certificate anymore.
Because after seventeen years of lies, I wanted one fact nobody could rewrite.
The result:
Michael Reeves was my biological father.
99.99%.
When I showed Ethan, he asked for his own test.
Gary was confirmed as his father.
Ethan cried.
Then surprised me.
“I wish Michael was mine too.”
Michael looked away because his eyes filled.
He crouched.
“I can’t change biology.”
Ethan nodded.
“But I can still show up.”
That mattered.
Then Gary’s charges and civil exposure began building across multiple areas:
Identity fraud.
Forgery.
Trust fraud.
Child abuse concerns.
Document falsification.
Conspiracy.
The exact legal process would take time.
But his plan was over.
The trust company locked everything.
I couldn’t access the money yet.
Neither could anyone else.
Safe.
Then Allison produced one final piece.
A voice recording.
Gary had trained her before a beneficiary meeting.
His instructions:
“If they ask about Michael, say he died when you were a baby.”
My skin crawled.
Then:
“If they ask about Diane, say she protected you.”
And:
“If Brooke finds out before eighteen, we change strategy.”
Allison asked:
“To what?”
Gary replied:
“Then Ethan becomes leverage.”
I stopped breathing.
“What does that mean?”
Rebecca’s face hardened.
Allison continued the recording.
Gary:
“Brooke will do anything for that kid.”
I felt physically sick.
Gary knew me.
He knew Ethan was the one person I would burn everything down to protect.
The belt hadn’t just been rage.
It may have been the beginning of a threat.
Then investigators searched Gary’s phone.
One unsent draft message to me:
If you want Ethan safe, sign what I put in front of you.
May you like
I stared at the screen.
He had been preparing to use my brother against me.
