“There’s twelve thousand dollars in this envelope — all I have left of what he sent me,” she whispered. “I made a huge mistake. I couldn’t tie myself to a pathological liar for the rest of my life.”

She said something else then, quietly, that I did not process for two years because I was busy being magnificent.

“He told me things about you,” she said. “I don’t know what to do with them now.”

“I’ll deduct it from the restitution he owes me,” I said, taking the envelope. “Castles built on stolen foundations always collapse, Emma.”

She looked at me for a moment as though she were deciding something. Then she picked up her bag and left, and I sat there feeling that I had handled it well.

A month later, on a rainy afternoon, I came out of my building to find Everett on the sidewalk — gaunt, unshaven, his suit hanging off him. He dropped to his knees on the wet concrete.