“What a small and pathetic life a man must live,” she said, “to believe a woman could ever get used to being treated as stolen property.”

Chapter 17 — The Depth of It

The rest came out over the following weeks, as the machinery of the law did its work, and every piece of it was uglier than the last.

The two hired men were found in another county and confessed almost at once — not out of remorse, but out of raw terror of the prison time they were facing — and both pointed straight at Delilah as the mastermind.

Wayne Vance, it emerged, was drowning in gambling debts, and Delilah had offered to clear every one of them if he cooperated.