Altogether, the money drained out of our joint family accounts came to exactly forty-one thousand two hundred dollars.

I squared up the blue carbon sheets into a tight stack and clamped them together with a heavy steel binder clip.

Trevor thought I was sitting in my father’s guest room crying into a handkerchief.

He had no clue that Douglas Hayes was already drawing up an ex parte emergency motion for nine o’clock Friday morning.

The courthouse annex lobby was cold and smelled of lemon floor wax when we came through the metal detector at seven thirty.

Douglas Hayes was standing by the elevators, his polished leather briefcase propped against his knee.