During my lunch break, I reached out to a sharp attorney named Tasha Higgins who had a reputation for handling messy domestic cases with total precision. I sat in her office that afternoon and recounted the details of my life as if I were describing a movie about a woman I barely knew.

I explained that my husband had sold my vehicle under the guise of paying for his mother’s care, but Tasha did not seem surprised by the story at all. She began to pull up records and make calls to her contacts while I sat there with my hands trembling in my lap.

Tasha eventually turned her computer screen toward me and told me that not a single cent of that money had ever reached a medical facility. I read the name of the recipient, Monica Sellers, and felt a wave of nausea wash over me as I recognized the name from Garrett’s past.

He had always described Monica as just an old friend from his hometown who was going through a rough patch and needed a little bit of help from time to time. I whispered a question about who she really was to him, and Tasha looked me in the eye with a gaze that was both pitying and professional.