The transactions that would look most suspicious to an auditor, the inflated donations at high-society auctions, were being run through my card, in my name, generating a paper trail that led, if anyone ever pulled it, to me.

I was not a wife they tolerated for my patience.

I was a designated fall guy.

They had kept me in the family, and kept me quiet, and kept me an authorized user on my own exploited account, precisely so that if the IRS ever came, the primary cardholder whose name sat atop the most incriminating transactions would be Evelyn, the accountant, the outsider, and not a Vance.

For six years, they had been laundering money through me, and building, quietly, the case that would send me to prison in their place if the scheme ever unraveled.