I handed Walter an envelope. “There’s the address of a cheap motel on the edge of town — I’ve prepaid one week. That’s the limit of my charity. Don’t ever contact me again.”

Nobody asked me for anything else. I noticed that, dimly, on the way back up in the elevator, and decided it was pride.

Chapter 10 — The Downfall

Everett’s nightmare started at a beachfront dinner in Maui, when the platinum card was declined. The resort locked him out of the villa over an unpaid twenty-thousand-dollar balance, and Emma packed her trunks and left him on the curb without looking back.

Stranded, he pawned the diamond Rolex in Kahului for two thousand dollars, bought a red-eye back to Atlanta, and rode a damp subway to the run-down motel where his parents were staying.

Shirley threw herself at him; Walter shouted about his stupidity. Then his phone lit up with an email from HR at Apex — his employment terminated, and felony fraud charges promised unless he repaid the embezzled corporate funds within forty-eight hours.

A week later, Emma McDowell asked to meet me at a coffee shop. She looked hollow, stripped of the glamour.