“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.

A message intercepted?” I repeated.

“Case got dropped before they could verify the evidence,” Dad said.

What was the message over the wires?”I demanded.

Dad looked very unwilling to tell the details, but tell them he did.

The message read: “The Sutter master ledger never leaves the family.

“Never any duplicates.”

My mouth went bone dry.

His words went in my mouth.