Then he stared at the ceiling. “I’ll call a family meeting. I’ll get Richard. We’ll corner her and make her hand it over.”

He thought he was summoning me to a slaughter.

Chapter 4 — The Witch Trial

The childhood home smelled of dust and leftover memorial incense. At noon I walked in with Mr. Harrison beside me.

It wasn’t a family meeting. It was an ambush. Uncle Richard stood by the fireplace with his arms crossed like a bouncer. Marcus sat at the dining table wearing an expression of tragic exhaustion he’d clearly rehearsed.

Aunt Susan sneered from the armchair.

“You actually showed up instead of running,” Richard said. “Marcus told us everything. While we were grieving, you broke into the safe and stole Margaret’s financial documents.