He hadn’t bought pastries because his conscience bothered him about striking his mother across the face in front of his wife.

He had come into my room because he was terrified.

He knew David was an attorney, even if he didn’t know David was already pulling land records.

He knew Arthur worked in finance, even if he didn’t know Arthur would spend four hours tonight running bank tracing numbers.

He had realized that as long as I held onto my original paper register, every single cash handoff from the past seven months was written down in ink, with dates, amounts, and bank branch numbers.

He had come to sweet-talk me into giving up the one piece of paper that proved where my home sale money had gone.