“I already have realized that,” I said softly, and I hung up.

Chapter 10 — The Accounts

At nine o’clock the next morning, my father’s corporate credit cards stopped working, everywhere, all at once.

By noon, the commercial account that had been quietly making the payments on Savannah’s leased Audi was frozen, and that month’s automatic payment bounced.

And at two in the afternoon, my father stormed into First Pine National Bank, shouting, demanding that someone explain to him immediately what was happening to his accounts.

Douglas Wright, I am told, gave him a single sentence.