My stepmother called at 11:47 p.m. on the first night in the beach house that I bought with my own money and told me she and my father were moving in the next day, that they were taking the master suite, that her daughter would get the best ocean

Every drawer they emptied. My dresses jammed into the wrong closet. Brooke’s absurd skincare refrigerator plugged into the best room in the house. The orchids Miranda placed in the foyer as if she were mistress of the estate. The timestamped call from the night before.

Then I called my attorney, Nathan Cole.

He listened, then said, “Please tell me there’s a second reason you’re calling.”

There was.

Months earlier, after my father’s heart scare, I had asked Nathan to quietly review some paperwork tied to my father’s property in Newport. Something about a transfer document had bothered me.

Now he pulled everything.

By afternoon, he called back and said, “Sit down.”

An LLC had been formed in Miranda’s name. My father’s Newport house had been transferred into it through a deed with a suspicious signature. Retirement funds had been moved. A line of credit opened in his name during his recovery. Donations made in Miranda’s name were funded by money she should not have had access to.

And then Nathan added one more detail.

Miranda had been selected as Philanthropist of the Year for the California Justice Foundation Gala.

Of course she had.