“No, Mom,” Brandon said. His voice was thin, but steady enough. “I’ve been busy.”
“With what, sulking? We need to move. I emailed Henry the packet, and he hasn’t responded. This is exactly why things fall apart when people don’t understand timelines.”
“He’s not saying no.”
There was a pause. You could almost hear Diane’s attention sharpen.
“What does that mean?”
“It means he has questions. He’s a businessman. He wants to know where the deposits go. How the escrow works. Which vendors need what. He said if he’s going to contribute that much, he needs documents.”
Roger’s voice came faintly in the background. “Put him on speaker.”
“Is Roger there?” Brandon asked.
“Of course Roger is here. We’re having coffee.”
There was rustling, then Roger’s voice came through clearer. “Brandon, buddy, that’s good. That’s very good. Questions mean engagement. Engagement means he’s emotionally invested.”
I watched Agent Watanabe write something on her pad.
“Can you meet with him?” Brandon asked. “Walk him through it?”
Diane gave a little laugh. “I would be delighted. Henry is a cautious man. That’s not a flaw, as long as caution doesn’t become provincial.”
Roger said, “Tell him we can bring invoices. Escrow instructions. Vendor confirmations. Whatever he needs.”
“Okay,” Brandon said.
“Brandon,” Diane said, her voice changing, dropping into something intimate and dangerous, “you are doing the right thing. For Emma too. A wedding like this will elevate her. She may not understand that now, coming from her background, but one day she will thank us.”
Brandon closed his eyes.
Agent Watanabe looked at him closely.
He opened them. “I’ll set the dinner.”
The second meeting took place at the Coastal Pearl on a Tuesday evening after the dinner rush. We used the same private dining room. Agent Watanabe’s team wired the room earlier that afternoon. Brandon wore a recording device as well, though you would never have known from looking at him. He arrived with Diane and Roger at eight-thirty. Emma was not there. I had insisted on that. Diane pretended disappointment, but her eyes told the truth: fewer witnesses made her more comfortable.
She wore black this time, a silk dress with a scarf knotted at the throat. Roger wore a blazer and an expression of friendly competence. They came prepared.
Diane placed a folder on the table before she sat.
“I thought we could make this easy,” she said. “You’re a busy man.”
“That I am.”
“And I appreciate that you want transparency.”
“I always do when someone asks me for seven figures.”
Roger laughed. “Direct. I like that.”
“No,” I said. “You like that I haven’t said no.”
His smile stalled, then recovered.
Diane opened the folder. “Here is the venue proposal.”
The letterhead looked impressive at first glance. Heavy paper. Embossed logo. Polite language. But I had already learned from Agent Watanabe that the contact email did not belong to Vizcaya and the phone number routed to a prepaid line.
“Deposit is required by the end of the month,” Diane said. “One hundred and twenty thousand.”
“For a venue?”
“For exclusivity,” she said. “These places don’t hold dates on goodwill.”
Roger slid another document across the table. “This is the floral designer. Fifty thousand to secure the installation team.”
“Installation team,” I repeated.
Diane brightened. “Yes. These aren’t centerpieces, Henry. They’re environments.”
“I see.”
“And this is the escrow structure,” Roger said, tapping a third page. “You wire the initial contribution here. We distribute to vendors from that account, keeping clean records.”
“Whose account is it?”
“A managed events escrow.”
“Managed by whom?”
Roger gave me a look of gentle amusement, the way one man looks at another who has just asked where the gas goes in a car. “A Delaware entity. Standard privacy practice.”
“Name?”
“RWD Holdings.”
“RWD,” I said. “Roger William Donnelly?”
His eyes flickered.
Diane intervened smoothly. “It’s simply an administrative convenience. Roger has relationships with these vendors.”
“I’m sure he does.”
Brandon sat beside his mother, pale and silent.
Diane turned to him. “Brandon, darling, tell Henry what you told me. About wanting this wedding to reflect both families.”
Brandon looked at me, then at her.
