I recorded their conversations, their plans to diminish my role in the family and relieve me of my assets.

Meanwhile, I quietly met with my own lawyer, a trusted friend of my late husband. Together, we reviewed my estate and devised a plan. I transferred my assets into a trust, one that only my trusted lawyer could access. To the world, and to my family, I played the part of the doting, dotty grandmother, blissfully unaware of the wolves circling.