"Uncle Rick is seriously ill and you're in the mood to go shopping for clothes?"
"We're going to have plenty of expenses down the road. Save where you can. You're a grown man. What does it matter what you wear?"
"Forget it. We'll talk about it when we have the money. I'm busy right now."
Her voice was harsh, but brittle underneath, threaded with the kind of panic that comes from guilt. The line went dead the second she finished speaking.
I watched her give instructions to the delivery clerk. I watched the two of them stroll arm in arm into a steakhouse, sitting side by side, raising their glasses in a toast to their brand-new home.
The two of them left with flushed faces, swiping my card at a hotel nearby.
I glanced at the hotel, then turned and walked away.
Not long after I got home, the private investigator sent over the information I'd requested.
At ten years old, Lucas Harding became Sonia Henson's new neighbor. They walked to school together and walked home together every day.
According to the file, Lucas had a father who was a gambling addict. His mother had run off when he was three.
Throughout his entire childhood, Lucas was pitiful and downtrodden. Sonia often looked after him, and Lucas treated her like an older sister.
When they were eighteen, they slept together in a cheap motel. Lucas swore he'd give Sonia a good life.
In the years that followed, Sonia funneled her own paychecks to him. Lucas tried flipping goods, opened a convenience store. Every single venture crashed and burned, bleeding money until there was nothing left.
Six months into one job, he got reported to his company by a client for demanding kickbacks. His reputation in the industry was destroyed after that. Nobody would hire him.
At twenty-two, Lucas showed up at the Henson family home to formally propose. Delilah Henson cursed him out and threatened to kill herself if Sonia didn't end it. The two of them parted in tears.
It finally made sense. Why Sonia had been so eager to marry me after just one month of dating. I didn't just earn a six-figure salary. My family's properties had been bought out for two apartments on top of that.
She'd wanted a naive, well-off husband to bankroll her lover boy and put her mother's fury to rest.
A sharp ache flared in my chest. I turned, poured myself a glass of cold water, and drank it down to dull the sting.