“She kept saying, ‘Please don’t let them find me,'” Mia told the investigator in a recorded statement. “Her dress was ripped, she had blood on her chin, and when I asked if she needed police, she said they would kill her.”

Mia remembered one more thing. “One of the older women carried a black folder into the suite before the attack.”

Robert went still. “They had papers ready.”

Evelyn nodded. “Which means this was planned.”

I felt sick. It hadn’t been a sudden fit of temper. It had been a ceremony after the ceremony — a second wedding where my daughter was meant to surrender everything she owned.

At 2:00 p.m., Victoria called. This time Robert put her on speaker.