The Reading
The notary’s office smelled like old paper and furniture polish, a scent that would forever be associated in my mind with the day my world shattered into pieces I couldn’t put back together.
I sat in one of three leather chairs arranged in front of Attorney Harrison’s massive oak desk, my fingers clenched so hard my knuckles had turned bone white. To my left sat my younger sister Elena, thirty-two years old, wearing a black Chanel suit that probably cost more than my monthly rent. To my right was my brother Marcus, thirty-five, in an expensive charcoal suit, checking his Rolex every few minutes with barely concealed impatience.
And me? I was Claire, the eldest at thirty-eight, wearing the same black dress I’d worn to my father’s funeral three weeks ago because I couldn’t afford anything new and it seemed disrespectful to show up in anything else.
My father, Thomas Morrison, had been sixty-eight when he died of a sudden heart attack in his office at Morrison Enterprises, the manufacturing company he’d built from nothing over forty years. He’d been strict but fair—or so I’d always believed. He’d raised us alone after our mother died when I was twelve, and he’d done his best to instill in us the values of hard work, honesty, and family loyalty.
I had always believed he would divide everything equally among us. That’s what fair meant. That’s what family meant.
Attorney Harrison, a distinguished man in his sixties with silver hair and reading glasses perched on his nose, cleared his throat and opened the leather-bound document with my father’s will inside.
“This is the Last Will and Testament of Thomas Morrison,” he began, his voice formal and measured. “Dated March 15th of this year, witnessed and notarized according to state law.”
I held my breath. Three weeks since the funeral. Three weeks of grief so heavy I could barely get out of bed. Three weeks of believing that at least I’d have my father’s legacy to hold onto, to honor, to continue.
“To my daughter Elena Morrison,” Harrison read, “I leave full ownership of Morrison Enterprises, including all assets, accounts, intellectual property, and ongoing contracts. The business will be hers to manage as she sees fit.”
My stomach dropped. The entire business? Just to Elena? She’d never worked there a day in her life. She was a socialite who spent her time at charity galas and spa appointments, funded by her husband Derek’s tech money.
“To my son Marcus Morrison,” Harrison continued, not looking up from the document, “I leave the family home at 1847 Lakeside Drive, including all furnishings and property. I also leave my investment portfolio, currently valued at approximately $3.2 million, and my personal bank accounts.”
My breathing became shallow. The house. The investments. Everything.
“And to my eldest daughter, Claire Morrison,” Harrison said, and I leaned forward, desperate to hear what my father had left me, what piece of his legacy I would carry forward.
Harrison paused, and for the first time, he looked up at me over his reading glasses. There was something in his expression—pity, maybe, or confusion.
“To Claire, I leave my loyal companion, Rex, and I request that she take care of him for the remainder of his natural life. I trust she will honor this wish.”
Silence.
Complete, absolute, crushing silence.
A dog. My father had left me a dog.
Not money. Not property. Not a piece of his company. Not even a sentimental item like his watch or his desk or the photographs that lined his office walls.
Just Rex. His German Shepherd. The dog he’d gotten five years ago after his doctor told him he needed to walk more for his heart health.
I didn’t understand. The words didn’t make sense. They couldn’t be real.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice sounding distant and strange. “Could you read that last part again?”
Harrison looked uncomfortable. “To Claire Morrison, your father leaves his dog, Rex, with the request that you care for him.”
“That’s it?” The words came out as a whisper. “Just… just the dog?”
“I’m afraid so,” Harrison said. “That’s all that’s specified for you in the will.”
The thing is, my father knew—he knew perfectly well—that I had been afraid of dogs since childhood. When I was seven, a neighbor’s Rottweiler had knocked me down and bitten my arm badly enough to require fifteen stitches and months of therapy. I’d never managed to get completely comfortable around dogs, especially large ones like Rex.
My father knew this. We’d talked about it. I’d told him about the nightmares I still had sometimes, about the way my heart raced when a big dog approached me on the street.
So why? Why would he leave me the one thing I was afraid of? Why would he give Elena and Marcus everything while giving me nothing but an obligation that terrified me?
I looked at my siblings. Elena was examining her manicure with studied disinterest, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth. Marcus was checking his phone, typing something quickly, barely able to contain his satisfaction.
They’d known. Somehow, they’d known what the will said before we got here.
“There must be a mistake,” I said, standing up so quickly my chair scraped loudly against the hardwood floor. “My father wouldn’t— He wouldn’t do this. He wouldn’t give me nothing while giving them everything. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I’m very sorry, Ms. Morrison,” Harrison said, his voice gentle but firm. “But this is your father’s will, properly executed and witnessed. Unless you have grounds to contest it—evidence of coercion, fraud, or diminished capacity—these are his final wishes.”
“Contest it?” Elena spoke for the first time, her voice sharp. “On what grounds, Claire? That you think you deserve more? That you feel entitled to our father’s hard work? How selfish.”
“I’m not— That’s not what I—” I couldn’t form coherent sentences. My mind was reeling.
“Face it,” Marcus said, standing up and buttoning his suit jacket. “Dad made his choice. He decided who was worthy of his legacy and who wasn’t. Maybe you should ask yourself why.”
The implication was clear: this was a judgment. A final verdict on my worth as a daughter.
“I loved him,” I whispered. “I took care of him. When he was sick last year with pneumonia, I was the one who stayed by his bedside. I was the one who drove him to doctor’s appointments. Where were you?”
“Running his business,” Elena said coolly. “Making sure he still had an empire to leave behind. You played nurse. I played CEO. Guess which one he valued more.”
But that was a lie. Elena had never worked at Morrison Enterprises. She’d never shown any interest in business. This made no sense.
I left the attorney’s office in a complete daze, my body moving on autopilot while my mind spun in useless circles. The spring sunshine felt wrong, too bright, too cheerful for the worst day of my life.
One thought kept echoing in my mind: Why? What did I do? Was I a bad daughter? Didn’t he love me?
I’d been close to my father, or so I thought. We’d had dinner together every Sunday. We’d talked about books and politics and the state of the world. He’d seemed proud of me when I got my teaching job at the elementary school, even if it didn’t pay much. He’d told me I was doing important work, shaping young minds.
Had it all been a lie? Had he secretly resented me for not following in his footsteps, for choosing education over business?
My brother and sister kept exchanging glances as we walked to our cars in the parking lot—too satisfied, too calm, too much like people who’d gotten exactly what they expected.
“Where’s the dog?” I asked numbly, suddenly remembering. “Where’s Rex?”
“Still at the house,” Marcus said. “We haven’t decided what to do with the property yet, so we left him there with the housekeeper. You can pick him up whenever you want. Or not. We don’t really care.”
“Our father’s last wish was that I take care of him,” I said.
“Then I guess you’d better honor it,” Elena said, climbing into her Mercedes. “It’s the only thing Dad asked of you. Try not to screw it up.”
They drove away, leaving me standing in the parking lot with tears running down my face, completely unable to understand how my life had fallen apart so completely.
The Dog
I didn’t go to the house right away. I couldn’t face it—the home I’d grown up in, now belonging to Marcus, filled with memories of a father who apparently hadn’t loved me enough to leave me anything but a dog I was afraid of.
I went home to my small one-bedroom apartment in a part of town my siblings would never visit, and I cried for three days straight. I called in sick to work. I didn’t answer the phone. I barely ate.
On the fourth day, my best friend Maya showed up with Thai food and wine.
“Okay,” she said, setting the bags on my kitchen counter and surveying the mess of tissues and unwashed dishes. “I love you, but this is getting unhealthy. Talk to me. Tell me everything.”
So I did. I told her about the will, about getting nothing but a dog, about my siblings’ obvious satisfaction with my humiliation.
“That doesn’t sound like your dad,” Maya said thoughtfully. “From everything you’ve told me about him, he wasn’t cruel. He was stern, maybe, but not cruel. Something about this doesn’t add up.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying maybe there’s more to this. Maybe you should go get the dog. Honor your father’s last wish, even if you don’t understand it yet.”
So the next morning, I drove to the house on Lakeside Drive. It was a beautiful property—three stories of stone and glass overlooking the water, worth at least five million dollars. The place I’d grown up. The place that was now Marcus’s.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Chen, who’d been with my father for fifteen years, opened the door. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and when she saw me, she immediately pulled me into a hug.
“Miss Claire,” she said, her voice thick with emotion. “I’m so sorry. About your father. About everything.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Chen. I’m here to pick up Rex.”
Her expression changed, became strange. “Yes. Of course. He’s been waiting for you. It’s almost like he knew you’d come.”
She led me to the sunroom at the back of the house. Rex was lying on his bed near the window, a massive German Shepherd with intelligent brown eyes and a graying muzzle. When he saw me, he stood up and walked over slowly, his tail wagging gently.
I backed up instinctively, my old fear rising in my throat.
“It’s okay,” Mrs. Chen said softly. “He’s the gentlest dog I’ve ever known. Your father trained him well.”
Rex sat down in front of me, looking up with what I could only describe as patient understanding. He didn’t jump. Didn’t bark. Just sat there, waiting.
Slowly, carefully, I reached out and touched his head. His fur was soft, warm. He leaned into my hand slightly, and I heard a soft sound—almost like a sigh of relief.
“Your father loved this dog,” Mrs. Chen said. “But he loved you more. He talked about you all the time. How proud he was of you. How you were the only one of his children who’d turned out with a good heart.”
“Then why—” My voice broke. “Why did he leave me nothing?”
Mrs. Chen’s expression was odd, troubled. “I don’t know, Miss Claire. But I know something wasn’t right these last few months. Your brother and sister started visiting more often. There were arguments. Your father seemed… afraid, sometimes. And he spent a lot of time with Rex, talking to him like he was a person.”
A chill ran down my spine. “Afraid of what?”
“I don’t know. But I think… I think you should take Rex home. I think your father had his reasons.”
So I did. I led Rex to my car—he jumped into the backseat without hesitation—and I drove us to my small apartment, feeling like I was in a dream.
The Adjustment
The first few months with Rex were difficult. My apartment was tiny, barely big enough for me, let alone a large dog. My landlord wasn’t thrilled about the addition, but I managed to negotiate an extra pet deposit I could barely afford.
Rex was surprisingly quiet, obedient, and affectionate. He seemed to understand everything I was going through—the grief, the confusion, the hurt. When I cried at night, he would rest his head on my bed, his warm presence somehow comforting despite my lingering fear.
Slowly, carefully, I started to adjust to having him around. I took him for walks in the park. I fed him at the same times my father had. I brushed his fur and made sure he had fresh water.
But I couldn’t love him. Not really. Every time I looked at him, I saw the symbol of my father’s rejection, the proof that I hadn’t been good enough.
My siblings didn’t contact me at all during those months. No phone calls to check how I was doing. No invitations to family dinners. It was like I’d been erased from their lives the moment the will was read.
I heard through mutual acquaintances that Elena was already making changes at Morrison Enterprises—laying off long-time employees, outsourcing production to cheaper overseas factories, making decisions that my father never would have approved of. The company he’d built with his own hands was being dismantled for parts.
Marcus had put the family home on the market for seven million dollars. All those memories, all that history, reduced to a real estate listing.
I tried to contest the will, as Attorney Harrison had mentioned. I hired a lawyer I could barely afford, and we filed paperwork claiming undue influence. But without proof, without evidence of coercion or fraud, the case was dismissed within weeks.
I was stuck with nothing but a dog I couldn’t quite bring myself to love and grief that felt like it would never end.
Then, six months after my father’s death, everything changed.
The Vet Visit
Rex had seemed a bit off for a few days—not eating as much, moving a little more slowly. I’d been taking him to the same veterinarian my father had used, Dr. Sarah Mitchell, a woman in her forties who ran a small clinic across town.
I called and made an appointment for a routine check-up, just to make sure everything was okay.
During the examination, Dr. Mitchell was thorough, checking Rex’s teeth, his ears, his joints. Rex lay patiently on the steel examination table, letting her work.
Then suddenly, Dr. Mitchell froze. She was examining Rex’s collar—a thick leather collar with metal studs that my father had always insisted Rex wear.
“That’s odd,” she murmured, frowning.
“What is?” I asked, stepping closer.
“There’s something embedded in the collar. I felt it when I was checking his neck. It’s small, maybe a centimeter across, but it’s definitely there. Can I remove the collar for a moment?”
My heart started beating faster for reasons I couldn’t explain. “My father never took that collar off. He said it was special.”
“May I?” Dr. Mitchell asked, her hands already moving to the buckle.
I nodded, unable to speak.
She carefully unbuckled the collar and examined it closely under the exam light. Then she pulled out a small magnifying glass and looked even more closely.
“It’s not a regular stud,” she said slowly. “This has been modified. There’s a seam here. I think… I think there’s something inside.”
She looked at me. “Do you want me to open it?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
Using a small tool, Dr. Mitchell carefully pried open the metal stud. Inside was a tiny device, no bigger than a thumbnail, with a USB connector.
“It’s a flash drive,” Dr. Mitchell said, placing it carefully in my palm. “Hidden inside the collar. Your father must have put it there.”
I stared at the small device, my mind spinning. Why would my father hide a flash drive in Rex’s collar? Why go to such elaborate lengths?
“There’s something else,” Dr. Mitchell said, her voice gentle. “When your father brought Rex in for his last check-up, about a month before he died, he asked me specifically to mention this to you if you ever brought Rex in. He said if anything happened to him, I should make sure you looked closely at Rex’s collar. He said it was important. That it was the truth.”
My hands started shaking. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Your father made me promise to wait until you were the one caring for Rex, until you’d bonded with him enough to keep him. He said if I told you too soon, you might just take the device and give the dog away. He wanted you to have Rex. He said Rex would protect you.”
Protect me from what?
I thanked Dr. Mitchell, put Rex’s collar back on, and drove home in a daze. The tiny flash drive felt like it weighed a thousand pounds in my pocket.
The Truth
When I got home, my hands were shaking so badly it took me three tries to plug the flash drive into my laptop. Rex sat beside me, his head resting on my knee, as if offering comfort for what I was about to discover.
The drive contained a single video file, labeled “For Claire – The Truth.mp4”
I clicked it.
My father’s face filled the screen. He was sitting in his home office, the one with the built-in bookshelves and the window overlooking the lake. But he looked different from how I remembered him. Pale. Tired. Afraid.
The date stamp on the video showed it was recorded three weeks before his death.
“My dearest Claire,” he began, and his voice cracked slightly. “If you’re watching this video, it means I’m no longer alive. But before anything else, I need you to know this: I have always loved you more than anything in this world. You are my greatest achievement, my pride, my joy. You are the daughter I always hoped you’d be—kind, honest, compassionate, strong.”
Tears were already streaming down my face.
“Don’t believe what you saw in the will,” he continued, his voice growing stronger. “I didn’t leave you less because I loved you less. I was forced to write that will. I had no choice.”
He paused, taking a shaky breath.
“About four months ago, your brother and sister came to me with a proposition. They wanted me to sign over control of Morrison Enterprises to Elena and transfer my personal assets to Marcus. I refused. The company was supposed to be divided equally among all three of you. That was always the plan.”
My father’s expression darkened.
“But they didn’t accept my refusal. They threatened me. They showed me documents—forged documents—showing that I’d been embezzling from the company, hiding money in offshore accounts. The documents were completely fabricated, but they looked real. They said if I didn’t give them what they wanted, they would report me to the authorities, destroy my reputation, and contest everything in court. They said they would make sure you got nothing at all.”
I felt sick. My own siblings. My own family.
“I went to my lawyer, but Harrison was already involved. They’d gotten to him first, offered him a substantial bribe. He told me to do what they wanted or face criminal investigation. I was trapped.”
My father’s hands trembled as he adjusted the camera.
“I wrote the will they dictated. But I couldn’t leave you with nothing, Claire. I couldn’t let them destroy you the way they were destroying me. So I made a plan. I left you Rex, because I knew they wouldn’t care about a dog. And I hid the truth where they’d never think to look.”
He leaned closer to the camera.
“On this flash drive, you’ll find copies of everything. The real documents showing the company structure. The forged documents they created. Emails between Elena and Marcus planning this whole scheme. Bank records showing the bribes they paid. Audio recordings of their threats. Everything you need to prove what they did.”
My hands were shaking so violently I could barely keep the laptop steady.
“I also have evidence that they’ve been planning to contest my previous will, the one that split everything equally. They were going to claim I was mentally incompetent. They had doctors lined up to testify about my supposed declining mental state. But I was sharp until the end, Claire. I documented everything.”
He paused again, and when he spoke, his voice was filled with love and regret.
“I’m so sorry I had to do this to you. I’m sorry I had to leave you with nothing in the official will. But I knew that if I left you anything directly, they would contest it, destroy it, make sure you got nothing. This way, they thought they’d won. They’d leave you alone. And Rex would keep you safe while you discovered the truth.”
He smiled sadly.
“Take care of him, my dear girl. He loves you almost as much as I do. And please, prove their guilt. Make sure they face justice for what they’ve done. But be careful. Your brother and sister are capable of anything. They’ve already shown that.”
The video ended, freezing on my father’s face—tired, afraid, but determined.
I sat in front of the screen, trembling, as reality split in two. Everything I thought I knew was a lie. My father hadn’t abandoned me. He’d protected me. He’d given me the only gift that mattered: the truth.
Rex whined softly and pressed closer to me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and finally, truly, let myself love him. He was my father’s last gift, his protector, his messenger.
And now I understood why my father had left him to me, even knowing about my fear. He’d known I would overcome it. He’d known I would do the right thing.
I spent the next six hours going through every file on the flash drive. The evidence was damning, comprehensive, irrefutable.
Emails between Elena and Marcus discussing how to force Father to change the will. Text messages coordinating their threats. Audio recordings of them telling him they’d ruin his reputation if he didn’t comply. Financial records showing bribes paid to Attorney Harrison. Forged documents claiming embezzlement. Expert analysis proving the forgeries.
And most damning of all: a recording from my father’s hidden security camera showing Marcus and Elena in his office, threatening him just days before his heart attack.
“Sign the will,” Marcus’s voice said on the recording, cold and threatening. “Or we’ll make sure you spend your final years in prison for fraud. And Claire? We’ll make sure she goes down with you. Is that what you want?”
My father’s response was heartbreaking: “Please. She’s done nothing wrong. Leave her out of this.”
“Then sign,” Elena’s voice said. “Sign and we’ll leave her alone. Refuse, and we’ll destroy all of you.”
I listened to my father, broken and defeated, agreeing to their terms.
That night, I barely slept. Rex stayed beside my bed, guarding me like my father had asked him to.
In the morning, I knew exactly what I had to do.
The Police
I took the flash drive, printed copies of the most important documents, put everything in a folder along with Rex’s collar, and drove straight to the police station downtown.
I asked for the fraud division and was directed to Detective Lisa Warren, a woman in her late forties with sharp eyes and a no-nonsense demeanor.
I sat across from her desk and laid out everything.
“My siblings coerced my father into changing his will under threat of false criminal charges,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “They bribed his attorney. They forged documents. And I have proof of all of it.”
Detective Warren listened to the whole story, then spent two hours reviewing the evidence on the flash drive. Her expression grew darker with each file she opened.
“This is substantial,” she finally said. “We’re talking about coercion, fraud, forgery, and possible conspiracy. Maybe even manslaughter if we can prove the stress of the situation contributed to your father’s heart attack.”
“Can you do something?” I asked. “Can you make them pay for what they did?”
“With evidence like this? Absolutely. I’ll need to verify the authenticity of the recordings and documents, get expert analysis, but this is enough to start an investigation. A serious one.”
She looked at me carefully. “You understand that if we pursue this, your siblings will be arrested. They could face significant prison time. And your father’s will could be invalidated entirely.”
“They threatened my father until his heart gave out,” I said. “They destroyed his peace in his final months. They stole his legacy and tried to steal mine. Yes, I want them to face justice.”
“Then give me forty-eight hours,” Detective Warren said. “Don’t contact your siblings. Don’t tell anyone about this. Let me build the case.”
I agreed, went home, and waited.
Rex stayed close to me the entire time, as if he knew something important was happening.
Two days later, Detective Warren called me.
“We’ve verified everything,” she said. “We’re moving forward. We’ll be making arrests tomorrow morning. I wanted you to be prepared.”
“Thank you,” I said, my voice shaking.
“One more thing,” she added. “Your father’s attorney, Harrison? He’s already talking. When we approached him with the evidence, he confessed immediately. He’s agreed to testify against your siblings in exchange for a reduced sentence. This case is solid, Ms. Morrison. Your father did an incredible job documenting everything.”
The next morning, I was sitting in my apartment with Rex when my phone rang. It was Maya.
“Oh my God, Claire! Turn on the news! Channel 7!”
I grabbed my remote and switched to the local news.
The headline made my breath catch: “SIBLINGS ARRESTED IN INHERITANCE FRAUD SCHEME”
The reporter was standing outside the police station, and in the background, I could see Marcus and Elena being led in handcuffs from police cars into the building.
Elena was crying, her designer clothes rumpled, her perfect hair messed up. Marcus looked furious, shouting something at the cameras.
“—arrested this morning on multiple charges including coercion, fraud, forgery, and conspiracy,” the reporter was saying. “According to police sources, the siblings allegedly forced their terminally ill father to change his will under threats of false criminal charges…”
I turned off the TV. I didn’t need to see anymore.
It was over.
The Justice
The legal proceedings took eight months. Eight months of lawyers, depositions, testimony, and media attention I never wanted.
Attorney Harrison testified in detail about the bribery, confirming every email and phone call. Forensic experts confirmed that the embezzlement documents were sophisticated forgeries. The audio and video recordings were authenticated.
My father’s doctor testified that the stress of the situation had absolutely contributed to his fatal heart attack, elevating the charges from fraud to felony murder.
Marcus and Elena tried every defense their expensive lawyers could think of. They claimed the recordings were fake. They claimed my father had been senile and paranoid. They claimed I had fabricated everything.
But the evidence was overwhelming.
In the end, Marcus pleaded guilty to avoid a longer sentence. He got seven years in federal prison for fraud and conspiracy.
Elena fought to the bitter end, insisting she’d done nothing wrong. The jury deliberated for four hours before finding her guilty on all counts. She was sentenced to ten years.
Attorney Harrison, who had cooperated fully, received two years and disbarment.
And the will? The courts invalidated the coerced version entirely and reinstated my father’s previous will—the one that divided everything equally among all three children.
I inherited a third of Morrison Enterprises, which I immediately sold to a competitor who promised to rehire the employees Elena had fired.
I inherited a third of my father’s estate, including enough money to never have to worry about finances again.
But more importantly, I inherited the truth about my father’s love for me. And I inherited Rex, who had been the key to everything.
The Aftermath
A year after my siblings’ convictions, I stood in the backyard of my new house—a beautiful property with acres of land where Rex could run and play. The house had a sunroom just like my father’s, and that’s where I kept his portrait, along with photographs of us together from happier times.
Maya was over for dinner, and we sat on the deck watching Rex chase butterflies through the garden.
“You know what’s crazy?” Maya said, sipping her wine. “Your father protected you even when he couldn’t protect himself. He knew exactly what he was doing.”
“He was brilliant,” I agreed. “He knew that if he left me anything obvious, they’d fight me for it. But a dog? They didn’t care about the dog. They probably thought it was one last way to hurt me, giving me something I was afraid of.”
“But instead, it was his greatest gift.”
“It was,” I said, watching Rex roll in the grass, happy and free. “Because he taught me that love isn’t always obvious. Sometimes it’s hidden. Sometimes it takes work to find it. Sometimes it comes in unexpected packages.”
I’d overcome my fear of dogs because of Rex. I’d learned to trust again because of him. And I’d discovered that my father had loved me more than I ever imagined—enough to orchestrate an elaborate plan to protect me from beyond the grave.
“Have you heard from them?” Maya asked. “Elena or Marcus?”
“Marcus wrote me a letter from prison,” I said. “It was supposed to be an apology, but it was really just excuses. I didn’t respond. Elena hasn’t contacted me at all. I think she still believes she was in the right somehow.”
“Do you forgive them?”
I thought about it. “I don’t know. Maybe someday. But right now, I’m just focused on living the life my father wanted me to have. A good life. An honest life. A life filled with love.”
Rex came bounding up the deck stairs, his tail wagging, and dropped a tennis ball at my feet. I threw it across the yard, and he raced after it, still young at heart despite his graying muzzle.
“You know what I think?” Maya said. “I think your father knew exactly what you needed. Not money or property or business success. You needed proof that you were loved. You needed the truth. And you needed Rex to teach you that sometimes the things we fear the most are actually the things that save us.”
She was right.
I looked at the portrait of my father in the sunroom, and I could almost hear his voice: You are my greatest achievement, my pride, my joy.
I finally believed it.
Because my father hadn’t left me nothing. He’d left me everything that mattered.
The truth.
Justice.
And one very good, very loyal dog who’d changed my life.
Rex came back with the ball, and this time, instead of throwing it again, I knelt down and wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in his soft fur.
“Thank you,” I whispered. “Thank you for everything. Thank you for being exactly what Dad knew I needed.”
Rex’s tail wagged against my leg, and he licked my face once, gentle and loving.
And somewhere, I knew my father was smiling.