At midnight, my four-year-old niece arrived barefoot at my workshop and whispered, “Mommy said there’s no room for me because of the new baby

The emergency custody hearing in Judge Miller’s chamber lasted less than twenty minutes.

Brenda hadn’t even shown up. Her court-appointed attorney looked embarrassed as Naira presented the hospital records, the timestamped gate video, and the forensic photo of the crude forged release form. Judge Miller, a strict woman who had presided over county family cases for twenty years, didn't hesitate. She signed the temporary emergency custody order, granting me sole physical and legal protection of Hollis pending a full dependency hearing.

When we stepped out of the courthouse into the bright afternoon sun, Hollis was asleep against my shoulder, her small breath warm against my neck.

"This is just the first hill, Cassian," Naira warned as we stood near my truck. "Brenda’s boyfriend, Greg, isn't going to let this rest. He’s spent the last two months trying to get control of your brother's estate."

"Brennan didn't have much," I said, setting Hollis gently into the heavy-duty child safety seat Naira had helped me buy earlier that morning.

"He had the land," Naira corrected quietly. "Sixty acres of prime timber sitting right next to the Blackwood Sawmill expansion project. And he had a life insurance policy through the lumber mill that paid out double for accidental death. If Brennan’s death remains ruled a suicide, Brenda gets the payout—and Greg gets Brenda."

A cold spike of anger settled in my gut. "And if it wasn't a suicide?"

"Then the policy is frozen, and whoever killed him goes to prison for life," Naira said. "Find out what Brennan was working on before he died, Cassian. That’s where the truth is."

That evening, after feeding Hollis a bowl of warm stew and tucking her into my bed with three extra wool blankets, I called my brother’s oldest friend, Marcus.

Marcus ran the evening maintenance shift at Blackwood Sawmill—the very place Brennan had worked for twelve years as a lead mechanic before he died. We met behind the equipment barn two miles down the valley, where the smell of wet sawdust and diesel exhaust hung thick in the air.

"You shouldn't be here, Cass," Marcus said, looking nervously over his shoulder into the dimly lit lumber yard. "Greg’s been made head of operations since Brennan passed. He’s got eyes everywhere."

"Greg was just a floor supervisor three months ago," I said, leaning against the cold metal casing of a forklift. "How did he jump straight to head of operations?"

"Because he brought in the deal," Marcus whispered. "Two weeks before Brennan died, Greg introduced the mill owners to a private investment group out of the state capital. They offered to buy sixty acres of timberland right adjacent to the mill for three times market value. They want to turn it into an automated processing center."

"That sixty acres belonged to Brennan," I realized out loud. "It was our grandfather’s land."

"Brennan refused to sell," Marcus said, his voice dropping even lower. "He told Greg the land was set aside in a trust for Hollis. He said he wouldn't sell a single tree. Two days later, Brennan was found dead in his truck at the bottom of the ravine behind the upper yard."

"The police said his brakes failed, and he was intoxicated," I spat out, the words tasting like ash. "Brennan didn't drink. Not since Hollis was born."

Marcus pulled a small, oil-stained notebook from his heavy canvas jacket and pressed it into my hands.

"Brennan kept a maintenance log," Marcus said. "Not the official mill log—his private one. He thought someone was messing with the brake lines on the heavy haulers. The night he died, he took his private notebook home. But Greg cleaned out his locker before you could get his personal things."

"Where did you get this?"

"It was jammed under the workbench in the tool bay," Marcus said. "Brennan hid it the afternoon before he died. Look at the last page, Cass."

I flipped open the notebook under the beam of my flashlight. On the final entry, written in Brennan’s rough, uneven hand, were four words and a series of numbers:

Greg fake signatures. Lot 4 land deed. 04/12.

"He found out Greg was trying to forge the property transfer," I whispered.

Before Marcus could answer, the beam of a high-powered spotlight cut through the darkness, pinning us against the barn wall.