I froze my credit.

I called my accountant and my attorney and the bank I’d done business with for twenty years, and I told them, as steadily as I could manage, that I had been an old fool and needed their help making sure it had not yet cost me everything.

By noon we had the first confirmed hole.

Someone had begun a loan application using my Social Security number, my financial records, details tied to my property.

It hadn’t been completed — we had gotten there in time, barely — but the recovery email on the application was not mine, and the alternate phone number ended in the same digits as a second phone Rebecca had always laughed off and denied owning.