“He keeps the passbook in his locked briefcase.”

Vance looked over the top of his reading glasses and folded his hands on his legal pad.

“Do you have sole access to any personal account?” Vance asked.

I reached into my handbag and took out a small vinyl book with faded gold lettering on the cover.

It was the savings passbook for nine thousand four hundred dollars, the inheritance my late grandmother had left me three years ago, sitting untouched at Oak Ridge Savings and Loan.

“This is in my name alone,” I said.