Eighty-nine million dollars, in cash.

I read that figure three times in the silent room, checking every single digit on the screen against the printed slip.

Across the dark yard, the lights in the main house clicked off one after another as Daniel and Renee turned in for the night.

They were asleep in their big bedroom, convinced they were saddled with an old woman who cost them forty dollars a month in water.

They were sure I had nowhere else to go, no options left, and no money to call my own.