Chapter 18 - The Wrong Man
Knox claimed Richard ordered the warehouse doors locked to trap Rosa Delgado, the bookkeeper who had copied the fraudulent invoices. Daniel arrived unexpectedly after finding her warning note. The fire was meant to destroy the records and silence Rosa.
"Then why did Daniel die instead?" Ethan asked.
Maya took a careful breath. "Because he went inside looking for her."
Rosa had escaped through a loading dock minutes earlier, unaware that Daniel had returned. Samuel tried to warn him, but Frank knocked Samuel unconscious. Richard fled when the flames reached the solvent drums.
The new account matched parts of the cassette and Samuel's testimony. It also explained why Rosa had spent her life trying to set the record straight.
"She thought he died for her," Tessa whispered.
"He died because criminals set a fire," Ethan said. "Don't put that on her."
Prosecutors continued verifying Knox's story. His testimony could reduce his own sentence, so Maya warned Ethan not to treat it as established truth until other evidence supported it.
The support came from a forgotten security company's archive: a duplicate dispatch log, preserved on microfilm, showing that an emergency exit alarm had been disabled at Richard's request, and a guard's call reporting Daniel entering the west warehouse just before the blaze.
Richard's lawyers argued the death was unintended. The prosecutor charged him with felony murder under the applicable state theory, along with arson conspiracy and related offenses. The jury would decide.
At a preliminary hearing, Ethan saw Richard for the first time since the arrest. The older man had lost weight but not his stare.
"You could still walk away," Richard whispered as deputies escorted him past.
Ethan looked him in the eye. "My father tried that. You locked the door."
Richard flinched.
May you like
At the back of the courtroom, Margaret rose from her wheelchair, balanced on her repaired cane, and spoke clearly.
"I'm not afraid of you anymore."
