“Maybe,” Melanie said. “But she’s the one signing the receipts at the villa. She’s the one pretending to be me when the landlord calls.”

I looked at the forged driver’s license again.

Chloe’s eyes looked back at me.

She looked so young, so completely out of her depth.

“If the police get involved,” I said, “what happens to Chloe?”

“She’s using a forged federal document, Anne,” Melanie said. “She’s committing identity theft. Even if Lucas set it up, her face is on the card.”

The reality of the situation began to settle over me like a suffocating blanket.

Lucas hadn’t just built a secret life with my sister.

He had built a trap.

“He’s protecting himself,” I whispered.

“Of course he is,” Melanie said. “Lucas never takes the fall. He always has someone else standing in the blast radius.”

She pulled another document from the envelope, but she didn’t hand it to me right away.

She kept her palm flat over the paper.

“There’s more, Anne,” she said. “And it’s much worse than a leased house in Palm Springs.”

I looked at her hand on the paper. “What is it?”