I looked past his shoulder at the courthouse steps, where Dean stood under the stone archway all by himself.

He didn’t look like the confident executor who’d walked into my kitchen with grocery bags and smooth talk for six years.

He looked small and gray, completely broken by his own greed.

“I want my house back, but I’ve got no interest in taking his pension,” I told the lawyer.

“Are you sure about that?” the lawyer asked, holding his pen over the pad.

“Leave his pension alone,” I said.