“You mean everything you stole,” I said.

“I did it for us,” he said, though the lie had no strength left in it.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small silver burner phone.

It was the one he thought I didn’t know about.

His fingers flew across the screen.

He put the phone to his ear.

He waited.

The hum of the indoor waterfall behind me was the only sound.

“Brooke,” he said, his voice dropping to a desperate whisper.

“Brooke, answer me.”

He listened for a moment, then pulled the phone away.

The call had gone straight to voicemail.

He dialed again.

“She wouldn’t do this,” he muttered to himself.

“She wouldn’t.”

He looked at me, as if searching for some kind of reassurance.

“She loves me, Claire,” he said.

It was the pathetic plea of a man who had traded his entire life for a fantasy.

“She loved your money, Victor,” I said.

“And right now, you don’t have any.”

He stared at the burner phone in his hand.

Suddenly, the screen lit up with an incoming text message.