He didn’t usually shout.
He became cold.
Controlled.
Deliberate.
And the damage felt exactly like that.
Not a sudden outburst.
Something planned to cause the greatest amount of trouble while remaining difficult to explain.
***
On Wednesday afternoon, Claire asked me to visit her office.
When I arrived, she handed me an email from Brian’s attorney.
Brian denied causing any deliberate damage.
He claimed the holes were ordinary moving-related wear and tear.
He suggested the faucets might have been accidentally left running by unknown individuals.
And he insisted he knew nothing about how the mirror had broken.
I stared at the paper.
“Unknown individuals?”
Claire sighed.
“Nicole—”
“Who else was living there?”
“I understand.”
“And the mirror just happened to smash itself?”
She gave me a look that told me not to repeat that sentence in court.
Then she reached for another document.
“There’s something else.”
It was a motion filed by Brian’s lawyer shortly before I’d discovered the damage.
