Chapter 3 — The Bait

The next morning, I became the coldest husband imaginable.

Whenever my mother and Tara were near, I acted embarrassed by how Della looked.

I criticized her appearance, ordered her back to the kitchen, and said that once the five hundred thousand came through, I might just file for divorce.

Every word scalded my throat on the way out. But the act worked — they stopped hiding anything when I was around.

That afternoon my mother left her unlocked phone sitting on top of the refrigerator. I typed in Tara’s birthday and the home screen opened.

I found investment accounts holding seventy thousand dollars, records of payments toward my sister’s new truck, mortgage installments made days after each wire I’d sent. I photographed every screen.