My phone buzzed. An unknown number, an operator’s recorded voice.

You have a collect call from an inmate at Marion Federal Penitentiary. Press one to accept.

I pressed one.

“Claire? Claire, is that you?” Mark’s voice came through small and frantic, the arrogance stripped clean off. “Please don’t hang up. It’s hell in here. They know I was a corporate guy — they’re beating me, Claire, every day. You have the money. Please, post my bail for the appeal. I’ll do anything. I love you.”

I closed my eyes and listened to the desperate gasping of the man who’d stolen two decades of my life.

I looked out over the crashing blue surf — a very different ocean than the one he’d listened to in Maui with his mistress. This water didn’t sound like greed. It sounded like release.