“Come get your worthless daughter and take her back,” my mother-in-law shouted my father as I lay broken at the bottom of the stairs after my husband shoved me down. “Your family will answer for it if she has even a scratch,” was the sole warning Dad offered her. They had no notion who my father really was, so they made fun of him.

That memory now haunted with terrifying clarity.

You were looking into his family.

He knew.” I said it out loud.

“He knew I was asking questions,” Dad said softly.

“Then why were you asking questions?I pressed.

“Because I found a payment from their firm to a construction vendor who’s registered business address was a totally vacant lot,” Dad said.

I turned my head to Gabriel.

“What is a vacant lot address?””