Agent Marcus Vance didn't raise his voice. He walked across the hardwood floorboards, his leather shoes clicking with an unhurried, terrifying rhythm, and laid the thick manila folder flat onto the oak dining table.
Beside the folder, he placed a heavy, clear plastic evidence bag.
Inside the bag, resting on a bed of sterile white paper, were the three cashier's checks Margaret had laid on the kitchen island four hours ago—each stamped with the blue ink of First Horizon Bank, made payable to Margaret Whitfield in the amount of eighteen thousand three hundred and thirty-three dollars.
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Agent Vance pulled a high-intensity ultraviolet forensic light wand from his jacket pocket and clicked the switch.
A narrow beam of brilliant, blue-violet light swept across the face of the checks.
Under the ultraviolet radiation, the watermarks did not glow with the official seal of the state banking commission.
Glowing across the center of each document, rendered in fluorescent crimson letters that seemed to burn through the paper, was a single, terrifying corporate stamp:
