“Massachusetts,” Paul said gently, “requires consent of all parties. Michael consented to that call. It was his phone.”
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Margaret pressed the button again.
“Babe, who’s on the phone?”
“Not now, Derek!”
Amanda’s lawyer slowly stood.
“I am withdrawing from this matter,” he said. “I’m sorry, Mrs. I can no longer represent you.”
“Philip!”
“I would recommend you hire a criminal defense attorney.”
He picked up his briefcase and left.
The door clicked shut behind him.
Amanda looked around the room.
Her lawyer gone.
Michael silent.
Margaret calm.
Me, hands folded.
“You,” she said to me, voice shaking. “You did this.”
“No,” I said. “You did. I only kept my door closed.”
“I loved your son!”
“Then you should have asked him before selling his house.”
“I loved him!”
“Enough to forge his name?”
Her chin trembled.
Then she did the one thing I did not expect.
She turned to Michael and said, in a small, scared voice:
“Please. Don’t let them do this.”
Michael stood.
He was shaking, but he did not sit.
“Where is the money, Amanda?”
“I—”
“Where is the money?”
“It’s… it’s with Derek.”
The room went quiet.
“Derek has it?”
“He said it was safe. He said we’d be gone by December.”
“Gone,” Michael repeated.
“To Newport.”
“With me?”
She looked at the floor.
He laughed once.
Then, very softly:
“I’m glad I found out in an office and not a courtroom.”
Margaret’s assistant opened the door.
Two detectives stood behind her. A tall woman in a gray coat, a heavyset man with a badge on his belt.
“Amanda?” the woman said. “Detective Lund, Worcester Police, financial crimes. I have a warrant.”
Amanda stood so quickly her chair fell.
“You can’t.”
“Forgery. Uttering a forged instrument. Larceny. Attempted financial exploitation of an elder.”
“I’m not an elder! She’s the elder!”
“Ma’am,” Detective Lund said, “that’s the charge.”
Amanda began to cry.
Real tears this time.
They cuffed her gently, which surprised me.
As they led her through the reception area, a receptionist stopped typing. Two clerks in the hallway stared. A man waiting for a different appointment stood up in respect.
Amanda looked over her shoulder.
“Michael!”
He did not turn around.
Derek Pruitt was arrested the next morning at the Newport condo, with two suitcases packed and a one-way ticket to Lisbon on his laptop screen.
Margaret told me over the phone.
“He had thirty-one thousand in cash in a gym bag.”
“Of course he did.”
“The condo is frozen.”
“All of it?”
“Every cent. The court will liquidate it and apply the proceeds toward restitution.”
I put down my tea.
“How much will Michael get back?”
“Paul estimates the frozen accounts and the condo together cover about five hundred and forty thousand of the six hundred twenty.”
“Most of it.”
“Most of it.”
I laughed, a small startled laugh.
“And the rest?”
“Some was lost in the failed property venture. Some Amanda spent. Restitution will be ordered.”
“And Amanda?”
“She’s being arraigned this afternoon.”
“She has a real estate license.”
“Had,” Margaret said. “The state suspended it this morning.”
I closed my eyes.
I did not feel triumph.
I felt tired.
I felt, strangely, clean.
Winter came and went.
Amanda pleaded guilty in February.
Eighteen months in jail. Five years of probation after. A restitution order that would follow her for the rest of her working life. A felony record that closed every door she once walked through so confidently.
Derek Pruitt took a plea of his own, three years.
Michael filed for divorce on a Monday.
He moved into a small furnished apartment near Worcester. He bought cheap dishes. He learned online banking. He sat at his own kitchen table with his own laptop and logged into every account he had ever owned.
He sent me a photo.
A screen of numbers.
Below it, one line:
I know every password now.
I printed it and put it on my refrigerator.
In March, he came to my door.
I saw him through the peephole.
He was alone.
He had no suitcase.
He held a paper cup in each hand and a small bakery bag between two fingers.
I opened the door.
“I called,” he said quickly. “I called first. You didn’t answer. Linda said you were gardening.”
“I was.”
“So I thought I’d just—”
“Michael.”
“Yeah?”
“Come in.”
He stepped over the threshold slowly, as if the floor might change its mind.
We sat in the kitchen.
He set down the coffee.
“Hazelnut,” he said.
“Thank you.”
Then he reached into his jacket and set something on the table between us.
A silver key.
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