And Julian, a professional, had staked his firm’s money and his own freedom on that assessment, because it came from the person who supposedly knew me best.

In his panic, he was not really cursing my sister for a tactical error.

He was discovering, too late, that the intelligence he had trusted was catastrophically wrong, that the helpless woman was in fact the single most dangerous person he could have chosen to steal from, and that my sister, in her lifelong contempt for me, had led him directly into the one trap he could not talk his way out of.

There is a grim justice in it.