We sat cross-legged on the rug with the iPad between us while rain hammered the roof and the grandfather clock in the hall marked each passing minute like a witness. I walked her through everything. The phone call. The suitcase. The group chat. The photos. The sonogram. The fraudulent loan application attempt I had not even found yet but whose outline was already visible in the messages. Cassie did not interrupt much. She simply watched, absorbed, sorted. That was another thing about her. She could move through emotional wreckage like a firefighter through smoke, efficient and unsentimental because she cared enough to stay useful.
When I finished, she leaned back against the sofa and let out a long breath through her nose.
“This is not cheating,” she said. “I mean, obviously it is cheating. But that’s not the headline. This is a coordinated fraud. You are not dealing with bad behavior. You are dealing with a crew.”
I stared at her. “A crew?”
“Yeah. A family business. Emotionally abusive people love calling it family when they want access to the assets.”
The absurdity of the phrasing made a broken laugh escape me.