He had drained her cash, expedited a divorce, remarried his mistress, and deliberately left himself as the sole beneficiary of her death.

He was waiting at the finish line for a half-million-dollar payout.

I pulled out my cell phone and dialed David Caldwell.

David and I had worked in the trauma ward together back in Chicago. He’d been a brilliant trauma surgeon before burning out and going to law school. He was now one of the most ruthless, highly paid estate and litigation attorneys in Illinois.

He answered on the second ring. “Martha? It’s two in the morning. What’s wrong?”

“Everything,” I said.

I spent the next ten minutes laying out the entire, horrifying blueprint of Greg’s betrayal. David didn’t interrupt once.

When I finally finished, the silence on the line was deadly.