Chapter 20 - MY FATHER CHOOSES
Dad requested a meeting through lawyers.
I agreed.
He looked ten years older.
“I should have stopped her.”
“Yes.”
“I tried.”
“No.”
He looked down.
“You’re right.”
Good.
No cheap redemption.
“Why did you take the video?”
“Your mother called me before police finished.”
“And?”
“She said Emma’s life would be destroyed.”
“She was eleven.”
“I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“You were clear enough to collect evidence.”
He cried.
Then:
“I kept the USB because I knew deleting everything was wrong.”
“Where?”
He had hidden it in a safe-deposit box.
Why not produce it?
“Cowardice.”
At least he named it.
The USB still existed.
Higher-quality original footage.
My father turned it over.
Then documents.
Then account passwords.
He agreed to cooperate.
Not because he became heroic.
Because investigators had already reached him and prison became possible.
May you like
Mixed motives.
Useful truth.
