I felt only the vertigo of finally seeing, in the open, the full shape of what the two people responsible for my childhood had actually been planning to do.

Chapter 13 — The Wire

I thought the danger was over.

Then Detective Cruz took an urgent call from the trust’s corporate executor, and hung up with a dark expression.

“Phoebe,” she said carefully.

“Someone submitted a formal authorization this morning to liquidate the entire trust.

The document carries both your signature and Nora’s.” The request had been transmitted forty minutes after we arrived at the hospital — while we were unconscious, or nearly.

And the destination account, she told us, belonged to the only relative we had left.