I saved the file.
Then I opened the notes I had kept from work.
There it was again.
The company name.
The same one that had appeared repeatedly in Dad’s bank transfers during the previous three months.
I stared at it longer than I wanted to admit.
The temptation was immediate.
Connect the dots.
Make the ugly thing that had just happened explain the unanswered thing that had been bothering me for weeks.
But that was not evidence.
That was emotion trying to complete a pattern before the facts were ready.
My job had taught me better.
Preserve first.
Separate facts from assumptions.
Build a timeline before building a theory.
It was strange how different those principles felt when the person in question was my own father.
At work, a suspicious transfer was a line on a screen.
At home, it was attached to the man who had just put his hand around my throat because I would not sell the home I had worked four years to buy.
