Hank reached into his back pocket and pulled out a worn leather notebook tied with a thick rubber band. He slapped it down onto the glass counter right in front of Brenda.
Brenda: What is that supposed to be?
Hank: That's John's deployment journal. The one he kept when we were stationed in Fort Hood. The one where he wrote down every single detail of his estate plan before he got sick.
Brenda: A journal isn't a legal document! The judge gave me full legal guardianship after he died!
Hank: Because you told the judge that John had no surviving blood relatives in Texas! You swore under oath that his brother was dead!
Brenda: I didn't know where you were! You were out riding with your gang on the West Coast!
Hank: We were searching every homeless shelter, every foster home, and every county records office in five states looking for Lily! You changed her school records, changed her address, and hid her away so you could bleed the trust fund dry!
The store cashier, an elderly veteran wearing a faded camo hat, crossed his arms and stared sternly at Brenda.
Cashier: Lady, if you stole from a dead soldier's kid, you'd better start talking real fast before I lock these front doors myself.
Brenda: Mind your own business, old man! This is a family matter!
Hank: It stopped being a private family matter when you starved my brother's blood! Show me her social security card, Brenda. Right now.
Brenda: It's in the car! In my glove box!
Hank: Then let's walk out to that car together. And you'd better pray to God that John's birth certificate for Lily is sitting right next to it.
Hank opened the glass door, holding it wide as Brenda scuttled out onto the sun-baked asphalt like a cornered rat. Out on the porch, Lily was sitting on a wooden bench, smiling softly as Big Mike showed her how the chrome pipes on his motorcycle sparkled in the daylight[cite: 1].
Lily: Uncle Hank! Look! Mr. Mike said I can ride on the back of his bike if I put on a helmet!
Hank: You're gonna get your own custom helmet real soon, sweet pea. Just stay right there with Mike while I settle things with your aunt.
Brenda marched toward her beat-up sedan, violently unlocking the driver's side door and tossing papers out of the cluttered glove compartment.
Brenda: Here! Here's her birth certificate! Here's her medical card! Take them! I don't care anymore!
Hank snatched the yellowed papers from her trembling fingers, scanning the dark ink typed across the top of the Texas State Department of Health document.
Hank: "Father: John Robert Stevens. Designated Legal Guardian in Event of Decease: Henry David Stevens." My name was right here on the backup guardianship clause, Brenda!
Brenda: I couldn't afford to raise her on my own! My job at the diner didn't pay enough!
Hank: You didn't raise her! You used her as an ATM machine! Where is the rest of the life insurance money?
Brenda: It's gone! The stock market took it! I invested it in a business opportunity that failed!
Hank: You gambled it away at the riverboat casinos in Louisiana, didn't you?
Brenda turned her head away, biting her lip as she refused to answer.
Hank: You spent an orphan's future on slot machines while she wore shoes two sizes too small.
Brenda: Just let me drive away, Hank. You have the kid now. You have her papers. We're even!
Hank: We aren't even by a long shot, Brenda. My lawyer in San Antonio has been waiting for this exact phone call for two whole years.