Every time my brother-in-law drove me home, I would lose consciousness and wake up with unexplained aches and pains. My husband would only laugh and say, “You’re just out of shape, that’s all.” After the fourth ride, I secretly slipped a voice recorder into my purse and said nothing. That night, I listened to a phone conversation between the two of them that revealed my blackouts had never been accidental.

She checked the date of a purchase recorded in the financial evidence and frowned.

He had bought an expensive watch months earlier and listed it under a household gift account, yet I had never seen it.

The investigators were tracing assets potentially connected to the scheme.

The watch turned out to be irrelevant to the core allegations.

I mention it because of what the question did to me: for a moment, I couldn’t remember whether I had forgotten a gift.

I started searching my own mind as though it were an unreliable witness.