The spare brass garage keys I’d left in the kitchen emergency drawer were no use to me if he’d changed the lock pins from inside.

A shadow moved behind the heavy linen drapes.

Colleen stepped up to the double-pane glass and held a white printed legal paper flat against the window.

She kept turning her silver charm bracelet with her free hand, holding the document straight so the typed heading faced out to the yard.

It was an official notice of residential abandonment, with a red clerk’s stamp in the upper right corner.

“You walked away from your household duties for German corporate money, Valerie,” Colleen said through the thick glass.