At breakfast, my dad said: “We’ve booked a trip to Italy. Just the five of us. You understand, right?” I nodded: “Yeah, ok.” That night, I got a bank alert. $9,600 charged from Rome, Venice,… So I shut everything down. And everything collapsed in 48 hours.

Northbridge’s senior fraud investigator. I wasn’t a teller or clerk. I supervised high-value misuse investigations involving private clients.

And my family’s actions had left evidence everywhere.

By noon, their airline reservations were canceled.

At three, Diane’s boutique account was frozen following another attempt to use the same card.

By six, Claire received an email from her law school’s ethics office requesting a meeting concerning a financial misconduct complaint associated with her name.

Nobody touched dinner.

Dad finally abandoned his pretense. “What do you want?”

I surveyed the table.

“The truth.”