It was eleven, in three forums, over four days: a civil complaint for fraud, conversion and civil conspiracy; a chancery action to quiet title on the apartment; the emergency freeze made permanent; a police report — a real one, made in person, by Maya, with a lawyer sitting beside her, running to thirty-one pages with exhibits; and a formal referral to the county state’s attorney with the mechanical review and the timeline attached.

Maya sat in a police station for six hours and told the whole thing to two detectives.

She said the sentence out loud for the first time to another human being with a badge — my mother-in-law put a sedative in my tea and called my husband and told him to bring a tarp — and she got through it, and then she went out to the parking lot and was sick in a planter, and Harrison stood with his back to her the entire time so that nobody could look at her.

Nine days later the state’s attorney’s office opened a file, and eleven days after that they reopened the crash.