An article from the International Herald Tribune dated July 19, 1992, reports that Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright Sarah Lingate is missing on Capri, Italy. She was vacationing with her husband, Richard; his brother, Marcus; and Marcus’s wife, Naomi. Sarah was last seen on Saturday evening after a celebratory dinner at Casa Malaparte. An eyewitness noted that Sarah and Richard had a disagreement prior to dinner. Later, their group went for drinks, but neither Sarah nor Richard was seen after they reached Bar Tiberio. Richard reportedly returned to their villa alone around 2:00 am. Police were notified of Sarah’s disappearance the following afternoon and have initiated a search. The matter is currently being treated as a missing person case. The article provides background on the Lingate brothers as wealthy heirs to the DVH Holdings fortune.

In the present, Helen Lingate reflects on her family’s wealth and how having too much or too little money makes her anxious. She reveals that the family’s origin story, that her great-grandfather struck oil while prospecting for gold, is a lie created to hide the truth that he swindled a widow out of an oil lease. He promised to split the profits if oil was found within five years, then he delayed drilling until five years and one day later.