Chapter 8: Thirty-Eight Million

The lawyer's office was on the thirty-first floor, and I sat down before he asked me to.

He had two folders on his desk, one thin and one thick.

He opened the thin one first.

"Your grandmother's trust," he said. "When she died, it held thirty-eight million dollars."

"I know the number."

"Please look at the current one."

He turned the page toward me.

The balance was printed in plain black type.

Four million, one hundred thousand dollars.

I read it twice and then once more, with my finger under each digit.

"That's a typo."

"It isn't."

"Where did thirty-four million go?"

"In sixty transfers," he said. "One a month, for the last five years."

He opened the thick folder and laid out the first page of the statements.

Each line had a date and a payee.

Prescott Advisory Partners, advisory placement.

"Ethan's own firm," I said.

"Ethan's own small company, registered the same month he proposed."

He tapped the bottom of the page.

"Every transfer carries an authorization. Yours, signed, under the power of attorney you gave him when you got engaged."

"I never signed anything over a few thousand."

"The signature on file is a scan of your signature from the original document," he said. "It was reused. Sixty times."