Garrett looked at his sister’s handbag, the one Iris had bought for her, then at the designer shoes lined beside the door.

For years he’d treated Priscilla’s wants as urgent and Iris’s needs as negotiable.

Now, sitting in the apartment his sister rented, he wondered how he’d let a demand for one more card turn into the collapse of his marriage.

But he still believed he could talk Iris into coming back.

He hadn’t yet discovered the trouble waiting in his professional files.

PART 9