One of the police officers stepped between them, his hand resting on his belt.

“Stay back, Mr. Taylor,” the officer said.

Mark stopped, his chest heaving, his eyes darting around the room like a trapped animal.

“She’s lying,” Mark whispered, looking at me. “Claire, you know she’s lying. She planned the whole thing.”

I looked at him, feeling nothing but a deep, hollow exhaustion.

“You deserve each other,” I said.

Thomas Bell opened his briefcase with two sharp, metallic clicks.

He pulled out a thick blue folder and handed it to Investigator Miller.

“This is the certified deed to Hartwell House,” Thomas said. “Eleanor transferred the estate into a private trust three weeks before she passed.”

“It was never part of the marital property,” Thomas added. “Mark had no legal right to use it as collateral.”

Mark looked at the blue folder, his face draining of what little color it had left.

“That’s impossible,” Mark said. “Eleanor was sick. She didn’t know what she was signing.”

“She knew exactly what she was doing,” Thomas said. “She knew what you were, Mark.”