“Under the morality and fraud clause of the trust,” she explained, “your beneficiary status is suspended pending investigation. If convicted, permanently revoked.”

Clara read the page once. Then again. Her lips began trembling.

“Dad,” she whispered. “Please.”

There it was. A word she hadn’t spoken to me in years.

Please.

I wanted to feel nothing. I wanted to turn into stone. But grief is messy. It arrived with memories. Birthday candles. Tiny shoes by the front door. A little girl begging me to check under her bed for monsters.

I looked at the man standing beside her in handcuffs.

The monster had been beside her the entire time.