And their plans — the funeral they would stage, the story they would tell the police, the accounts in the Bahamas where they intended to split fifty million dollars once the grieving widower’s claim was paid.

Brandon had committed the entire crime, start to finish, in the one place in the world he felt safest, and my dead father’s caution had been sitting in the dashboard the whole time, listening.

There is a grief in that discovery that sits right alongside the vindication, and I have never been able to fully separate the two.

My father had been gone for two years by the time I lay on that ledge.

He never met his grandson.

He never knew what Brandon truly was — I am almost glad he did not live to see it, because it would have broken his heart, and because I am not certain Brandon would have dared attempt any of it while my father was alive to watch.