The lawyer was out of state, chosen so that no colleague of mine might see my name and think it strange.

The transfers were structured over months, in amounts small enough to draw no bank’s notice, into a place chosen because it does not answer to American courts.

The competency papers were not a rough idea; they were finished documents, needing only a signature and a compliant doctor, both of which she had arranged.

This was not a scheme half-formed.

It was a project — planned, financed, and calendared, carried out with the patience of someone who had perhaps done it before.

And the date told me the most chilling thing of all: that if Anouk had knocked that tray three weeks later instead of this Tuesday, there would have been no warning at all.