“Then let her say it,” I said.

“Go on, Teresa.”

Teresa looked at me, frightened but resolute, a woman deciding to tell the truth even though she had every reason to believe it would cost her.

“She told him,” Teresa said, “that after the wedding, I wouldn’t be able to warn you about anything.

Because by then, you would already have signed the papers.” And there it was, the whole of it, laid out in a single sentence.

Vanessa had not tied Teresa to a column to cover up a petty theft.