Page 107 of Split Decision

Pattern three:What he shares. Brandon tells me things about Marin—her history, her clients, a case she handled in Atlanta two years ago that she apparently managed with precision. He tells me these things unsolicited, in theconversational rhythm of a man who wants the people he loves to understand why he trusts someone. He's making a case without realizing he's making one.

Pattern four:What he doesn't share. There are gaps in what I know about Marin that Brandon should have told me by now—professionally, as my brother, as the person who brought her into our situation. How she came to work in crisis consulting. What she did before it. Why she left D.C. I know none of these things because Brandon doesn't volunteer them, and I haven't asked directly.

I close the notebook and look at the kitchen table.

I love my brother.

He came to Vegas because my mother was worried. He reviewed the photos of Andi and Travis and told me which ones were fake, because it mattered to him to tell me the truth, even when I wasn't in a position to hear it clearly. He's been there, consistently, in the ways that count.

He also brought someone into our lives without fully vetting her. And then fell in love with her. Which means his judgment about her is now compromised in a specific and irreversible way—not because he's stupid, but because that's how love works. It changes what you can see.

I put the notebook in the kitchen drawer under some takeout menus.

Tomorrow morning, I'll run six miles, come home, make breakfast, sit across from Andi at this table, and not tell her about the notebook yet, because she's got her own work and I don't want to add weight she's already carrying. Not conjecture. Not until I have solid proof.

What I will do is call Brandon.

Not about Marin. Just to talk, the way we do, the way we've always done—about the project he's working on, about our parents, about nothing in particular. And while we're talking, I'm going to listen for the gaps.

Not to catch him in anything. Just to understand the depth of the things he can't see.

He picksup on the first ring.

"Hey," he says. He sounds easy. Good. The contented quality of someone whose life is working right now.

"Hey. You have a minute?"

"Yeah. Just finished a call." I hear him settle in his favorite chair, most likely. His office chair has a specific sound. "What's up?"

"Nothing. Just checking in." I lean against the kitchen counter. "How's the Morrison project?"

He tells me about the Morrison project. It's a commercial development outside of Athens—complicated zoning, a neighbor dispute, the kind of thing that would grind most people down, but that Brandon treats like a puzzle that hasn't been solved yet. He likes the process. Always has.

We talk for twenty minutes.

At the nineteen-minute mark, easy and unprompted: "Marin's been looking at some of the governance documentation on it, actually. Fresh set of eyes. She caught something in the covenant language that we'd missed."

I wait a beat.

"That's good," I say.

"Yeah. She's sharp." He says it with the specific warmth of a man reporting something about someone he's proud of. "She's been talking to some of her contacts about the commercial development environment in Georgia. Making introductions."

"What kind of contacts?"

A slight pause. "Policy people. People who know how the regulatory environment works here." His voice doesn't change. "She has a wide network. D.C., mostly, but a lot of it has translated."

"How wide?"

Another slight pause. Slightly longer this time.

"Pretty wide," he says. "She's been in this work for a long time. You accumulate contacts."

I don't push.

"Sure," I say. "That makes sense."

We talk for a few more minutes about nothing in particular. When we hang up, I stand in the kitchen with my phone in my hand.