Chapter 18 - THE LAST WORDS
I stood there for a very long time, listening to the water lap against the broken supports. I waited. Hoped. Prayed that somehow he would rise again, gasping, defeated but alive.
The water remained still.
When the police arrived hours later, they found me sitting on the dock, staring into the darkness. I told them everything. The letter. The photograph. The meeting. The accident.
They searched for days. They found nothing. No body. No trace. Just the rotted planks and my testimony.
Robert was brought from prison to speak to investigators one last time. He confirmed everything about my father’s crimes, his history of violence, his obsession with control.
“In the end,” Robert told me quietly before returning to his cell, “he was destroyed by the very thing he trusted most. His belief that he could always manipulate everyone around him. He forgot that some things… cannot be controlled.”
The investigation closed. It was ruled an accidental death. No charges were filed.
But I knew the truth.
I had reached out. I had tried to save him. And he had slipped away.
Some nights I woke up hating myself for hesitating. For not acting fast enough. For letting my conscience freeze my hand.
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Other nights… I understood. Even if I had saved him then… he would have found another way. Another time. He would never have stopped hunting us. Not until one of us was dead.
That was the tragedy of it. He had forced my hand. He had made me choose between my father and my son. And in the end… there had been no choice at all.
