“Brian, did you ever have financial trouble? Bankruptcy?”
He looked startled, then ashamed.
“Yes. About ten years ago. I lost my job. Couldn’t keep up with the bills. I filed for bankruptcy, but I paid everything back. Worked three jobs. It took years.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want you to think less of me.”
I nodded.
“Someone’s been spreading rumors, saying you’re a con artist, that you’re here to take advantage of me.”
His eyes widened.
“That’s not true.”
“I know. But someone wants people to believe it is.”
We both knew who.
A few days later, things escalated. Brian came to me early one morning.
“The plow won’t start. I tried everything.”
I went to the equipment shed. The plow was old, but dependable.
I opened the engine panel.
And froze.
The wires were cut.
Clean. Precise.
My chest tightened.
“Brian,” I said sharply, “did you do this?”
He looked horrified.
“No. I swear I didn’t.”
“Then how did this happen?”
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice shaking.
I should have believed him.
But I was angry.
And I took it out on him.
“You need to be more careful,” I said coldly. “Mistakes like this cost money.”
He stared at me, wounded.
“I didn’t break it.”
“Then who did?”
He turned away without answering.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. The cuts were too clean. Too deliberate.
Then I remembered the cameras.
I went to my office and pulled up the footage.
Dennis.
He walked into the shed late at night, opened the panel, cut the wires.
I watched it three times.
My son was framing Brian.
The next morning, I drove to Dennis’s law office. My hands shook as I entered. He looked up, surprised.
“Dad?”
“I saw you on the cameras.”
“What cameras?”
“The equipment shed. You cut the wires.”
He leaned back and smiled.
“You don’t have proof.”
“I have video.”
“Is it clear? Can you prove it’s me, or that the footage wasn’t altered?”
He shrugged.
“Even if you could, who would believe you? I’m your son. And I’m a lawyer,” he said.
“What you’re doing is wrong.”
“What’s wrong,” Dennis said, “is you bringing a stranger into my inheritance.”
I realized then that I had already lost him.
He smiled coldly.
“You don’t have proof. And even if you did, it wouldn’t matter.”
He was right.
And I didn’t yet know how far he would go.
I should have seen it coming. Brian had been doing so well, learning so fast.
Dennis could not stand it.
A week after our confrontation, he made his next move.