You’re wearing stolen property to a meeting about stolen property.” Her hand went to her throat.

My father snatched up the restraining order, tore it in half, and let the pieces fall.

“Paper,” he said, “doesn’t scare me.” And behind him, the front door opened.

Raymond Steadman came in, and with him came two court-appointed officers and a three-person forensic imaging team with equipment cases, there to inventory and preserve every document in the house.

I watched my father’s face as he turned and saw them, and I watched the exact moment the truth arrived in it — that I had not come to plead, or to negotiate, or to be talked back into silence.

I had come to take an inventory of everything they’d stolen.