After we hung up, I stared at the phone.

The woman I’d spent months imagining as my replacement had become a person with her own shock and disappointment.

I didn’t like her, exactly.

But I no longer needed her to be a villain for my story to make sense.

PART 11: A Different Kind of Warning

I called Melissa on my lunch break.

“Daphne says there’s a loan Roger didn’t tell me about.”

Melissa listened without interrupting.