It all came apart quickly after that.

Larissa, to save herself from an attempted-murder charge, testified for the prosecution — but the messages the investigators recovered told on her anyway.

She had asked, more than once, when I would ‘be out of the picture for good’; she had wondered how fast twelve million dollars would clear probate; she had looked up our state’s spousal inheritance laws.

She avoided the worst charge, but Larissa Voss was indicted for fraud, conspiracy, and grand larceny over the money that had been bled from my firm — and the plea that spared her prison still cost her everything she’d reached for: the money gone, the man gone, her own child born while its father sat in a cell of his own.

Dr.