And then I stopped.

I did not hire anybody.

I did not instruct a lawyer.

I did not go to the police, which would have achieved nothing, but I did not consider it either.

I own six hotels.

At any given moment in that year I was paying four separate firms to find things out for me — title searches, background checks on a general manager, a licensing dispute in Charleston where I spent nineteen thousand dollars establishing who owned a piece of land.

Nineteen thousand dollars, to find out about a piece of land.