Chapter 2

By the time I got back to town, the sky was already light.

I didn't go home. I went straight to the library.

When my colleague Abigail Lambert saw me, she jumped.

“Denise? Didn't you take time off to go to Cloud City? Why do you look so awful?”

I tugged at the corner of my mouth. No smile came.

“I'm fine, Abigail. I just didn't sleep well.”

I started tidying the shelves and logging the new arrivals, my movements mechanical.

It let me stop thinking about it for a while.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

I didn't have to look to know it was Tim.

I took it out and blocked his number.

Every messaging app, every way he had to reach me, deleted.

In my mind, the diagnosis report I'd torn to pieces was already frayed at the edges.

“Severe depression, with anxiety symptoms.”

The doctor's words were still in my ears.

“You need medication and psychological intervention right away. Your condition is dangerous.”

Dangerous?

At the time, all I felt was how absurd that sounded.

I was just so tired. All I wanted was to see Tim, get my money back, and then get treatment.

All my savings, two hundred thousand, were with him.

He'd said he was going in on a project with a friend, a sure thing, and I'd make my money back in six months.

I believed him.

The same way I'd believed every “I love you” he ever said.

Now, looking back, that money had probably all turned into designer bags on Lisa's arm.

I sat in the corner of the library and looked out the window.

The sun was bright, but I couldn't feel any warmth from it.

There wasn't a scrap of strength left in my body.

Abigail brought over a cup of hot water and set it in front of me.

“Denise, don't keep it bottled up. Talk to me.”

I looked at the concern in her eyes, and my throat went tight.

“Abigail, I got scammed.”

I told her the whole thing, the two hundred thousand I'd lent him, all of it.

Abigail was so furious she smacked the table.

“That pair of cheating dogs! They're not even human!”

“Denise, you can't just let this money go! Two hundred thousand, that's everything you have!”

She was right. That was everything I'd scraped together over five years of work, going without.

It was the down payment I'd been saving to put on a place in Cloud City, to build a home with Tim.

It was also the money keeping me alive now.

Abigail looked at the wreck of me, and it broke her heart.

“Denise, listen to me. Go to the police.”

The police?

I froze.

“But……I transferred that money to him willingly.”

“What does the transfer record say?”

“……Investment.”

Abigail slapped her thigh.

“There you go! He told you it was an investment, then spent it buying his mistress a bag. That's fraud!”

“Save all your messages, all your transfer records. That's your evidence!”

Her words snapped something clear in me.

Right. Go to the police.

I was going to get back what was mine.

I needed that money to treat my illness.

I dialed 911.

The moment the call connected, my hand was still shaking.

But my voice was calm.

“Hello, I'd like to report a crime.”

“A man named Tim James defrauded me of two hundred thousand dollars under the pretense of an investment.”