Instead I felt relief. The affair wasn’t the greatest betrayal — by then it was just one more receipt confirming that the man I’d married had built his entire life on deception.

The attempted house sale collapsed almost immediately. The buyer had only ever dealt with Travis and had never met me; once Denise told him my consent had been forged, he withdrew and handed every email to investigators.

A handwriting expert later concluded that the signatures on the loan and sale documents had been copied from my old tax returns — papers Travis had found in the filing cabinet.

He had practiced my signature more than thirty times on a yellow legal pad. Police found the pad beneath his desk.

Chapter 11 — The Hearing

At the temporary divorce hearing, Travis arrived in a dark suit that fit him badly.

He looked smaller than I remembered.