Public records, first — the easy things, the things anyone can pull.

And what she found did not match the story Rebecca had told me.

Rebecca had told me she was a widow, once, tragically.

She was not.

She had been married twice before, and her second marriage, in Chicago, had ended in a civil complaint — hidden debts, forged signatures, a joint account drained to nothing.

She had not gone to prison.

Her second husband, exhausted and ashamed, had let it go.