At the bottom of the white page, under the legal statement assigning client fund authority directly to Vaughn Consulting LLC, was a sharp, slanted signature in bright blue ink.

It wasn’t Cole’s neat, upright handwriting.

“That’s Sierra Vaughn’s signature,” I said.

“She altered the power of attorney form in your home study three hours ago,” Mr.

Vance said calmly, pulling the document back to his side of the desk.

“She gave herself direct control over two point four million dollars of firm assets.”

I left the Midtown office tower without taking the elevator down through the main lobby, slipping out instead into the cold gray slush of Madison Avenue through the building’s side service door.

By two o’clock in the afternoon, I was standing in the quiet library of my grandmother’s townhouse on East Seventy-First Street.