My stepmother, Elizabeth Maxwell, grabbed both my hands before I had a chance to recoil in disgust. “Ashley, honey, I’m so glad you’re safe.”

Dark circles hung beneath her eyes, a flaw that her judiciously applied makeup did little to cover up. She was, as always, impeccably dressed, making me blush again in shame despite my assertion that I wouldn’t care what my mystery person thought.

But now, when I’d finally discovered who it was, that had apparently gone out the window.

“Hello, Ms. Maxwell,” a woman said in a cold voice on the other side of my stepmother. Barbara Hacks. There she sat, her auburn hair pulled back in a severe bun, her thick-rimmed glasses perched on her nose just like a stern librarian that just caught you whispering in the reference section. Ever since I’d been a child, she’d had that hairstyle. Now, even in her middle age, she’d kept it. “I see you’re alive. Good.”

I shook my hands free of Elizabeth’s grasp and stepped back from her, speechless for a moment as I put a hand on the table for stability. Despite my efforts, though, the world began to spin. These were not the people I’d expected to see. Where was my father?

“Here, honey,” the bimbo said as she pulled a chair out for me, “have a seat. You’re going to need one.”

What was going on? Had something happened to Father? Where was he? I shakily took the offered seat. “What?” I asked after a moment. “What are you two doing here? What’s going on? And where’s Father? Why isn’t he here?”

Elizabeth took a seat next to me, as my father’s assistant glared at us both. “Honey, there’s a problem. Your father has gone missing, and we think the men who attacked you earlier may be behind it.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, raggedly exhaled, and nodded slowly. “Okay. Father’s missing. For how long?”

Elizabeth winced, but didn’t say anything.

“How long?” I repeated, dread growing in the pit of my stomach.

“Two weeks.”

“Two fucking weeks?” I yelled. “And you didn’t bother to call me? Text me? Send a fucking tweet?”

“Ms. Maxwell,” Barbara said, getting up from her spot near the head of the table and circling around to sit across from me, “you must understand. There are other things in motion.”

“What other things?” I snapped at her. I turned to Elizabeth. “What other things?”

“News got out amongst some of the investors,” she said, pausing to lick her lips, “that the FBI and SEC have been investigating M Three Investments for the last month.”

“What?” I hissed.

“They’ve been pulling their money in droves,” Barbara said. “Just when we realized how much trouble the fund was in, Mr. Maxwell disappeared.”

“He disappeared? No one can just disappear! It’s the twenty-first fucking century!”

Elizabeth cringed, but Barbara just kept her steely eyes on me.

“We know he was headed west, and we believed his final destination would be Enchanted Rock and his cabin there. Apparently, whoever is looking for him believed the same as we did.”

“Well, I haven’t seen him!” I yelled at Barbara. “How did you two lose him?”

“He’s a grown man, honey,” Elizabeth said. “He’s not a child.”

“Don’t,” I replied without looking at my stepmother. “Stop it.”

“What?”

“Stop fucking calling me ‘honey.’ My mother called me that, and you’re no Tessa Maxwell.”

The chair shifted as the bimbo rocked back in her seat, but I refused to look at her.

“Now, why are the FBI and the SEC looking into the firm? Why are you being investigated?”

“We,” Barbara corrected with a sneer. “You have as much on the line as everyone else. Unless, of course, you think your monthly allowance appears out of thin air.”

Her words felt like a slap in the face. Now it was my turn to rock back in my seat. She was right, of course. My livelihood depended on M Three Investments as much as the other two women in this room. I nodded. “Ok, fine. Why? Why are we being investigated?” I asked, emphasizing the “we.”

“They received a tip that leads them to believe it’s a Ponzi scheme.”

A Ponzi scheme is a financial scam, where old investors get paid by new investors. It’s like a pyramid scheme, in a sense, that there’s no real value there from investments. My father had drilled them into my head, especially back during the Bernie Madoff scandal, about how awful they were. About how he’d never do anything like that, especially after Madoff got a century and a half in prison for defrauding his investors.

“What?” I growled. “Please tell me my father was never that stupid!”

“Oh, relax, it’s not a Ponzi. MTI is one of the oldest firms in the country. If it was a Ponzi, things would have collapsed decades ago.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“It’s just that the nature of our business, focusing on non-profits, is similar enough to the Madoff scandal that we’re under scrutiny.”

I shook my head. “Why did he leave, then?” I asked.

The women exchanged a look. Elizabeth nodded to Barbara.

“What? What are you two doing? Tell me what the fucking is going on here.”

My father’s assistant narrowed her eyes and leaned forward. “What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this room. I promise you, if it does, I’ll hunt you down myself, Ashley, so help me God.”

I sat back in my seat. Barbara Hacks had never spoken to me like that before. If you’d told me she’d threatened anyone, period, I’d have called you a liar to your face. “Fine. Tell me.”

She nodded and took a breath. Then she spoke. “We believe your father was laundering money for criminal enterprises. Namely the Yucatecahs, a Mexican drug cartel, and a group of Russian mobsters.”