“I am trying to protect this house,” I said.

“I’m staying at the dorm until both of you stop keeping secrets and acting crazy,” Sophie said.

She slammed the screen door behind her before I could reach the porch.

Lynn came through the unlatched back door at seven o’clock carrying a legal folder of her own.

I was sitting on the living room rug, surrounded by six years of filed tax forms and printed bank balance sheets.

“Patty called me from the church parking lot three hours ago,” Lynn said, dropping her coat on the sofa.