Her face was pale, her chest rising and falling rapidly.

“Mrs. Thornton,” she said, her voice shaking as she looked past Jason and straight at me.

“You need to come quickly.”

My heart stopped.

“What is it?” I asked, dropping the papers onto the desk.

“It’s Ethan,” she whispered.

I stood frozen, the library air suddenly feeling twenty degrees colder.

Jason’s hand remained on the desk, his fingers twitching near the silver pen.

“Stay here, Sarah,” Jason commanded, his voice dropping to a low, warning hiss. “We are finishing this now.”

I didn’t listen.

My fingers clamped around the white envelope on the desk.

As I pulled it toward me, the flap fell open, revealing a second document slipped behind the petition.

It was a single sheet of heavy bond paper, bearing the letterhead of a Swiss bank.

Beneath the printed figures was a signature I had seen a thousand times on permission slips, rent checks, and birthday cards.

My father’s handwriting was unmistakable, his cursive looping and erratic.

The document was an escrow agreement.

It detailed a transfer of three million dollars to my father’s account, dated three days before my wedding.