My husband pushed me down the stairs, and as I lay shattered at the bottom, my mother-in-law called my father and said, “Come get your worthless daughter and take her back.” Dad gave her only one warning: “If she has so much as a scratch, your family will answer for it.” They laughed at him because they had absolutely no idea who my father truly was.

I recognized the invoice header.

Callahan Residential Holdings.

That was the company Martin had used when he moved Lily’s education savings.

“What if the fall and the money are connected?” I asked.

Gabriel considered me for a long moment.

“Then we follow both trails separately until the evidence tells us otherwise.”

PART 9

Before I married Martin, I had worked in the accounting department of a nonprofit that provided after-school programs.