Chapter 5 - Richard ReynoldsFederal agents arrested Richard Reynolds three days later.
The charges initially involved financial crimes.
Money laundering.
Fraud.
Conspiracy.
Obstruction.
But Charles Bennett’s death was reopened.
The original medical records were reviewed.
No autopsy meant certainty would be difficult.
Then investigators found something in Charles’s archive.
A voicemail.
Richard’s voice.
Recorded two days before Charles died.
You meet with anyone, and your son inherits ashes.
That was threat evidence.
Not murder proof.
Then Emily remembered something.
On the night Charles died, she had served dinner.
Richard Reynolds visited.
Unofficially.
He and Charles argued inside the study.
Richard left around ten.
Charles collapsed shortly after midnight.
Margaret said Richard had gone home.
Security logs showed his car left.
But another vehicle entered through the service gate at 11:21.
Registered to a Reynolds subsidiary.
The driver:
Dr. Malcolm Voss.
Charles’s private cardiologist.
Voss had pronounced Charles dead.
And convinced Margaret an autopsy was unnecessary because the death was obviously cardiac.
Police interviewed him.
He denied wrongdoing.
Then federal agents showed him the money.
$2.4 million transferred into an offshore account three weeks after Charles died.
Voss asked for a lawyer.
The case broke.
Charles had been receiving medication for a minor arrhythmia.
Voss altered the dose.
Not enough to guarantee death.
Enough to create dangerous instability.
Richard instructed him to ensure Charles was “medically unable” to attend the federal meeting.
Again:
They claimed they did not intend death.
Again:
Someone died anyway.
Voss admitted Charles began experiencing severe symptoms.
Instead of calling emergency services immediately, Voss delayed.
By the time he acted, Charles could not be saved.
Richard Reynolds now faced far more serious charges.
Sophia learned from television.
She called her father’s attorney.
Then stopped.
For the first time, she chose not to protect him.
She gave investigators everything.
Emails.
Messages.
Instructions to search Bennett House.
Evidence Richard had encouraged her relationship with Daniel after discovering who he was.
Daniel learned about her cooperation.
It did not repair the relationship.
He cancelled the marriage officially.
Sophia accepted it.
Their final conversation happened in the hospital garden.
“I did love you,” she said.
Daniel nodded.
“I believe you.”
She cried.
“That almost makes it worse.”
“Yes.”
“Do you hate me?”
“Today?”
“Yes.”
“Some.”
She smiled weakly.
“Fair.”
He continued:
“But I hate that you thought loving me and deceiving me could coexist indefinitely.”
Sophia looked down.
“I thought I could tell you after I protected Dad.”
Daniel almost laughed.
“There is always an after.”
She looked confused.
“What?”
“My mother had an after too.”
After the wedding.
After the scandal.
After Emily left.
Everyone planned to become honest after dishonesty had already produced the result they wanted.
Daniel kissed Sophia’s forehead.
Goodbye.
The wedding never happened.
May you like
But the truth Charles Bennett had tried to reveal finally reached the authorities.
Nine years late.
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