I opened the door because hiding would not make him leave. Colton stood in the hallway red-faced and furious, but I barely saw him. Behind him, half a step back, stood a man in a gray credit union polo, an ID badge clipped to his chest, holding a slim folder of his own. I recognized him. He was the loan officer who had helped me open the children’s savings account years ago, the one who had smiled and shaken my hand and promised the two-signature rule would keep the money safe. He would not meet my eyes.

“Marlowe, we need to talk, now,” Colton snapped, trying to push inside. Danielle stepped forward and blocked the doorway with the calm of someone who had done it a hundred times. “You don’t live here anymore,” she said. “The locks are changed.” But it was the man behind Colton who made my stomach drop, because Danielle looked at him, then at the signature on the withdrawal form, then back at him, and said quietly, “You’re the one who authorized these, aren’t you? You approved every withdrawal without the second signature.”