“But he left you his entire fortune. Eighty-two million dollars.” The attorney turned to face him. “You benefited enormously from this man’s death, did you not?”

Brandon was quiet for a moment. His ribs still ached when he sat too straight, and he sat straight anyway, and looked at the attorney, and then past him at the jury.

“I would have benefited far more if Roderick Benedict had lived.”

“Mr. Robbins—”

“If he were alive today,” Brandon went on, his voice level, “he could have sat in that chair and told you himself what his wife did. He could have gone back to running the company he spent his whole life building.

He could have watched my sister walk out of that hospital on her own two feet after her surgery — he wanted that, he asked me about her, he cared how it turned out.”