the signature did not match mine.
Marcus placed the application beside an older form I had actually signed.
“The good news is that no money moved.”
He pointed to a handwritten figure near the bottom.
“The bad news is that whoever submitted this knew the account’s exact value.”
Only Richard and I had seen the statement.I drove home with the radio off. The rejected form sat inside a manila folder on the passenger seat.
At fifty-eight, I had spent most of my adult life catching errors for other people. I found duplicate invoices, missed deductions, and numbers that did not belong.
Somehow, I had failed to notice the largest deception in my own home.
During the following week, Richard became strangely polite.
He offered coffee. He folded towels. He warmed leftovers and left them in the refrigerator.
Two weeks earlier, I might have seen those gestures as proof he
