“Is the girl all right?”

I looked at the damp burlap on the floor of the pen.

“Activate the trust’s default clause,” I said.

“Buy out every cent of Veronica’s debt.

All of it.”

“If you sign the paperwork tomorrow,” Gabriel cautioned, in the careful voice of a man who has served a family for decades, “she forfeits her fifty percent share of the estate.

You understand that.” “I understand it.” “Then you also recall,” he said, “that under your father’s trust, you control the commercial deeds beneath the town square, the hotel development, and nearly half the land in this town.” Hannah watched me with wide, uncomprehending eyes, and I snapped the folder shut and held her against my chest.