Chapter 13: The Fall
Daniel died in prison fourteen months later.
Officially it was a heart attack. Unofficially, the other inmates had learned exactly what he had done to two four-year-old children for money and power.
I received the news on a quiet Tuesday morning while sitting on the dock of the lake house, watching the water.
I felt nothing at first.
Then, slowly, something like release.
Not joy. Not satisfaction.
Just the absence of the weight I had carried since the night I found them still holding hands.
I sold my shares in the company the following week. The new owners kept the name Bennett Safety Systems, but they rebuilt it from the ground up with the original designs I had created years earlier—the ones Daniel had tried to erase.
I did not keep a single dollar of the money.
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It went into a foundation in Emma and Ethan’s names, one that funded free carbon monoxide detection systems for families who could not afford them.
It felt like the only clean thing left.
