Chapter 11 - THE SENTENCE

Six weeks later, the courtroom filled again.

Victims spoke.

Investors.

Employees.

Thomas Reed.

My sister.

Then me.

I carried no paper.

I looked at the judge.

"David took money from me."

"He took my name."

"He took my signature."

"He took my daughter's inheritance."

I looked toward him.

"But the thing he took that no court can return is time."

David lowered his eyes.

"He had sixty chances to answer one call."

My voice shook.

"Sixty."

"Each one was a moment where the story could have changed."

I swallowed.

"If he'd answered call twelve, he could have come."

"Call thirty, he could have come."

"Call fifty-nine, he still might have made it before she died."

David started crying.

I continued.

"But he didn't."

"He chose silence."

I looked at the judge.

"I don't ask you for revenge."

"I ask you to make sure he never again confuses power with permission."

The judge sentenced David to thirty-eight years.

Thirty-eight.

He was forty-three.

He would be an old man if he ever walked free.

Julianne received five years after substantial cooperation.

Marcus Vale received fourteen.

Elliot received twenty.

Thomas entered witness protection permanently.

The legitimate money stolen from Lily came to me.

I put every dollar into the foundation.

The first grant went to a father from Ohio.

His ten-year-old daughter had been injured in a school bus crash.

He was working in Arizona.

He couldn't afford a same-day flight.

We bought it.

He reached the hospital before surgery.

He held her hand.

She survived.

When he wrote me later, I read one sentence until I cried.

THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME GET THERE IN TIME.

I printed it.

Placed it beside Lily's photograph.

That became the foundation's reason for existing.

Not David.

Not revenge.

Getting there in time.

Months passed.

Then a year.

On the first anniversary of Lily's death, I visited her grave alone.

"Hi, baby."

I brought pancakes.

Stupid.

Cold.

Animal-shaped.

I laughed while crying.

Then my phone rang.

Nathan.

I almost ignored it.

Then I smiled at the irony.

I answered.

"Hello?"

"Sorry."

"Don't be."

He paused.

"There's something you should know."

"What?"

"David had a cardiac event."

I felt almost nothing.

"Did he survive?"

"Yes."

I looked at Lily's stone.

"Okay."

"He asked his lawyer to send you something."

"I don't want it."

"It's about Lily."

My chest tightened.

"What?"

Nathan hesitated.

"A video."

"What video?"

"Her school play."

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