Every Friday he’d withdrawn three or four hundred dollars in cash — small enough to escape notice, regular enough to be a salary.

Then I unlocked his office with a spare key I found in the kitchen drawer. Inside his desk was a notebook full of reports about me.

Some entries described places I’d actually gone. Others were pure invention. One claimed I’d bought two bottles of wine and looked unsteady outside the store — I had driven straight home that day.

Eli had refused to give David the evidence he wanted, so David had started manufacturing it himself.

The folder also held photographs of me at stores, pharmacies, traffic lights. And then I found a draft petition seeking legal guardianship over me on the grounds of “diminished mental capacity.” Behind it was an appraisal of my lake cabin and a revised purchase offer from the developer.

An email from the attorney explained that once David became my guardian, he could ask the court to approve the sale of property held solely in my name.