The Night Eleanor Switched On the Clippers Was the Night Three Years of House Payments Came to an End

I studied the routing digits and recognized the source account from the monthly cash withdrawals listed in the green leather ledger.

The twelve thousand dollars had been siphoned off my income, a piece at a time, over the past twenty months and steered into her personal account without my knowing.

Footsteps sounded on the kitchen linoleum as Eleanor shut off the faucet.

I folded the thermal paper along its original crease, slid it back into the blue plastic wallet, and laid the leather strap back in place without shifting the purse handles by even a millimeter.

The credit union receipt number was already written down in the little notepad in my coat pocket when I walked into Frank’s conference room on Lake Street forty minutes later.