“My company has dissolved all partnerships with Hart Development,” Vance announced to the reporters. “We were presented with falsified balance sheets.”

Without Vance’s funding, the bank called in the loans on Graham’s construction sites.

By Friday, the cranes sat frozen against the grey skyline, their steel arms pointing to the sky like skeleton fingers.

The gates were locked, and the workers were sent home.

Graham’s company filed for bankruptcy the following Monday.

Then the state authorities moved against Margaret.

Because she had used her personal accounts to shield the stolen foundation funds, her assets were frozen.

Her townhouse in Beacon Hill was placed under a court-ordered lien.

I saw a photograph of her in the morning paper.

She was leaving a deposition, shielding her face with a silk scarf, her hand trembling as she reached for a taxi door.

She had spent her life protecting her status, and now she had nothing left but her name.

“They are offering a plea,” Rachel told me on a cold Tuesday in October.

We were sitting in a small diner near the courthouse, the smell of grease and burnt coffee in the air.