He only ever touched his cuffs when he was building a lie he needed someone to swallow.

He wanted me to stop asking questions.

He wanted me to throw the blue book in the trash and walk away.

If the account was truly empty, he wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of printing a letter.

He would have just laughed at me and driven home.

I folded the forged letter neatly in half and laid it right next to the muddy passbook.

The harsh yellow light of the cheap desk lamp was still burning from the night before.