I stood beside Samuel Reed’s desk, staring at the clear freeze-frame of Clara on his monitor.

The clerk behind the glass counter pushed a stamped blue folder across the marble ledge before the clock over her shoulder finished chiming eight.

“He filed it twenty minutes ago,” she said.

The title line across the top of the white form read Emergency Motion for Immediate Asset Seizure.

Julian had signed the bottom line in heavy black ink, claiming my six-year-old Buick sedan had been bought with disputed company reserves from Vance Contracting.

“Is there an injunction attached?” I asked.