“If you don’t, I file the involuntary hold tonight,” Dr. Vale said. “You will be transferred to a locked state ward in Sacramento.”

“You won’t be allowed visitors, including your attorney, for the first seventy-two hours.”

“By the time you get a hearing, your father’s attorneys will have already frozen the executorship.”

Ana walked over to the table and picked up the document.

She scanned it quickly, her jaw tightening.

“This gives Mark total power of attorney, with no oversight,” Ana said. “It’s a complete surrender.”

“It is a resolution,” Dr. Vale said.

He stood up, smoothing the front of his coat.

“I will give you two hours to discuss this.”

“If the papers are not signed by eight o’clock, the involuntary petition goes to the judge on duty.”

He walked to the door, his leather shoes squeaking slightly on the linoleum.

“Have a good evening, Miss Darcy,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

The silence in the room was deafening.

I looked at the empty space where he had stood, my chest heaving.

“Can he actually do this?” I asked Ana.