Brenda logged me into an empty terminal.

I began the grim task of pulling apart my daughter’s financial life. Years earlier, Sarah had listed me as an emergency co-signer on her primary bank accounts.

I’d never used the access. Parents don’t snoop through their adult children’s money unless the world has ended.

I logged into her checking account. Balance: $83.14.

I checked her savings account, which had held nearly forty thousand dollars from her teaching salary just six months ago.

Balance: $0.00. I went line by line through the transaction history. Electronic transfers. Repeated, precise, ruthless withdrawals over the span of three months. The same destination account every single time: Gregory Lawson.