Chapter 1 - Nine Seventeen
At 9:17 p.m., my husband locked me in our kitchen and told his mother to bring him the papers that would take away my money.
The bolt slid into place with a soft click. Brandon stood behind the glass door, looking less like a criminal than a man waiting for an elevator.
"Open it," I said.
"Abby, please. You're making this harder than it needs to be."
His mother, Gertrude Holt, stepped beside him. She held a thick folder against her cream sweater. "We're trying to protect you."
"From what?"
"Your own judgment. You haven't been yourself since your father's death."
"That was eighteen months ago." I held up the settlement agreement I had been reading. "And it doesn't explain three million dollars missing from the Vale trust."
Brandon's hand tightened around the door handle. That tiny movement told me more than a confession would have.
"Bellwether Strategic Investments," I continued. "No office. No employees. Three payments. Who approved them?"
"You're confused," he said.
"I'm a corporate attorney. I know the difference between confusion and theft."
Gertrude slid a document against the glass. It authorized Brandon to manage my personal property and communicate with the trustee on my behalf. My signature line was waiting at the bottom.
"Sign it," she said, "and we can all go to bed."
I backed away. There was cooking oil on the tile beside the stove, although I hadn't used the stove that evening. The smoke detector above the kitchen door was dark. Brandon had installed three cameras after my father's funeral. One was mounted over the refrigerator, its little red indicator blinking steadily.
My father used to say the trust included a trap for dishonest hands. He never told me what that meant. Standing in that kitchen, I wished I'd made him explain.
I reached beneath the island, where he'd once insisted on installing a small emergency panel. My fingertips found the recessed switch.
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Outside, headlights washed across the front windows. A white van came through the gate, stopped beside the porch, and opened its side door.
A woman stepped out carrying a medical restraint bag.
