The case was no longer a forgotten mountain accident.
It was a criminal investigation spanning more than a decade.
And it had begun with a torn teddy bear.
CHAPTER 15 — THE COURTROOM CONFESSION
The trial began the following spring.
By then, Benjamin had returned home.
Not permanently at first.
He visited for weekends.
Then longer stays.
He met his sisters gradually.
Sophie cried so hard when she saw him that she could barely speak.
Benjamin knelt in front of her.
“You got big, Soph.”
She threw herself into his arms.
“I kept your blanket.”
He laughed through tears.
“Of course you did.”
Our house slowly filled with sounds I hadn’t heard in years.
Laughter.
Arguments about television.
Footsteps on the stairs.
Someone stealing the last cookie.
But four chairs would never become eight again.
Grant, Nathan, and Oliver were still gone.
No reunion could erase that.
I carried that grief with me into the courtroom.
