an independent investigation, but the company rejected her requests and treated her as someone seeking money.
I remembered a photograph of Emil with his two daughters, both wearing bright yellow raincoats, standing beside a boat he had repaired.
If the emergency equipment had failed that night because the company refused to fund repairs, then Dorian and Miriam had harmed more people than me.
That thought kept me working with the investigators.
***
Walter Wren came to visit me eleven days after Owen was born.
He looked older than I remembered.
His illness had advanced, and he leaned heavily on a cane.
For the first time, the man who had built an empire seemed unsure where to put his hands.
He stood beside the hospital bassinet and looked at his grandson.
“Does he have a name?” he asked.
“Owen Samuel,” I said.
“After my father.”
Walter nodded.
“Good name.”
Then he sat down.
“Iris, I owe you an apology.”
I didn’t answer.
He looked at the floor.
“You warned me months ago that the accounts didn’t make sense.
I let Dorian convince me you were overreacting.”
“You believed your son,” I said.
“I wanted to.”
The words were quiet and devastating.
Walter had spent four decades building a company he believed would outlast him.
His own family had been dismantling it from the inside.
I handed him copies of the financial reports.
He studied the transfers, the falsified invoices, and the names of contractors who had never performed any work.
When he reached the maintenance certificate carrying my forged signature, he shut his eyes.
“How much?”
“At least eighteen million in questionable transfers.
Investigators are still determining the exact amount.”
Walter sat silently for several minutes.
Then he asked the question I had been waiting for.
“What happens to the people behind the seawall?”
“They need the repairs the money was meant to buy.”
He looked toward Owen.
“And you?”
“I need you to stop protecting the people responsible.”
Walter began to cry.
Not dramatically.
He simply lowered his head and wiped his face with a handkerchief.
“I should have listened to you,” he whispered.
Over the following weeks, Walter worked with independent counsel and trust administrators to protect his controlling voting interest in Wren Coastal.
The resulting trust placed those shares under professional management and directed the trustees to prioritize repairs, employee claims, and independent oversight before approving a sale.
Walter had his legal capacity independently evaluated before executing the documents.
He also provided records and sworn information to investigators.
He wasn’t able to undo his family’s crimes.
But he could stop them from using his estate to continue hiding those crimes.
Four months after the night at Station Four, Walter died from complications of his illness.
Dorian announced that he would honor his father’s legacy by moving forward with a major waterfront transaction.
Miriam organized a ceremony at the harbor terminal.
They intended to unveil a memorial plaque for me and my unborn child before holding a shareholder meeting that would authorize the next stage of their planned sale.
When I saw the announcement, I felt something inside me become very still.
They were going to celebrate my death while trying to profit from the very fraud that caused it.
I called my attorney.
“I’m going,” I said.
***
