Marcus has never quite recovered from how close the timing was, and the more he learned about the machine that had been built around his daughter, the more that closeness terrified him.

Because the scheme was not a crude one.

It was patient, and layered, and deliberately slow, and it was very nearly finished.

Sarah had spent a year, and Julian longer than that, assembling the pieces one at a time so that no single piece would alarm anyone: the recommended firm, the reasonable-looking rental proposal, the gradual accumulation of footage, the trust-review inquiry, the rider clause, each step innocuous on its own, each one advancing the narrative another inch toward its conclusion.

And the conclusion had been almost within reach.