“Two hundred and eighty thousand dollars over seven years,” Carl said.

“Every penny routed straight to the Oakridge Marina management company.

He set up automatic drafts on the sixteenth of January every year.

Your money never touched a grocery store register or a school tuition office.”

I looked at the transfer dates.

Each one matched the exact week I had signed the cashier’s checks at Brenda Potts’s teller window.

I remembered the carbon slips locked in my market desk drawer.

I thought about Emma wearing the same scuffed winter boots to school two years in a row.