Simone slid a single sheet from the envelope and held it so all three of us could see it. It was a sworn statement, notarized weeks before my father died, and clipped to it were copies of text messages, dozens of them. Kendra leaned in, still wearing the last of her confident smile, until she recognized the phone number at the top. It was Marcus’s. My father, a retired attorney who had spent forty years reading people better than they read themselves, had documented everything. He had known, long before he passed, exactly what Kendra and Marcus were planning, because Marcus had told him himself.

Kendra turned slowly toward her husband. “What is this?” Marcus could not meet her eyes any more than he had been able to meet mine. The person Kendra thought was helping her, the inside source who had assured her the estate could be split, who had told her the house was practically theirs, was Marcus. And my father had recorded every one of those conversations, because Marcus, still owing my father money from a loan he’d never repaid, had gone to him first, trying to secure a share before the will was even written. Dad had let him believe it was working. Then he had built a trap out of it.