“She was a private person and I thought I was respecting her.

I have learned that there is a difference between respecting privacy and taking the exit somebody offers you because it’s easier.”

What the file eventually established was that in the last four months of her life, Emily Collins Brooks had done the following, alone, without telling a single member of her family.

She had photographed nine loan documents and moved them off-site.

She had opened an old phone, restored it, and started an archive.

She had pulled her own credit report — twice, six weeks apart.