Teresa Pearson stayed on to run operations, and it was Teresa who handled the board members who took one look at the young man in plain clothes who rode the bus to meetings and decided he’d be easy to fleece.

When a cluster of them tried to push through inflated management fees, Teresa killed it in a single meeting.

“Having a good heart,” she told the table, in a tone that ended the discussion, “does not make him naive. And I read every number that crosses this table.

Try that again and I’ll have your contracts audited line by line.”

With the investment portfolio — the largest part of what was left — Brandon did the thing Roderick had asked him to do. He established the Roderick Benedict Pediatric Heart Foundation, an endowment with one purpose: to fully fund life-saving cardiac surgery for children whose families could not possibly afford it.

Children exactly like Sierra had been.