Preston Gaines rose slowly, sensing the ground shift beneath him. He tried to recover, saying his clients’ concern for their mother was sincere regardless of my past career. But Judge Lang was no longer listening to him. He was looking at the petition the way I had taught my own analysts to look at a forged ledger, reading not what it claimed but what it was hiding. And this petition was hiding a great deal.

“Your Honor,” I said, opening the navy coat to remove a single slim folder, “I came without an attorney because I did not need one to read my own bank records.” Marcus’s smirk was gone entirely now. Sabrina had gone pale. I set the folder on the respondent’s table and told the judge that everything their guardianship petition tried to bury was documented inside it, in my own hand, cross-referenced and dated.