Later my mother would tell the police how Nick had texted her, asked her to come over. But Sean White testified that they were never able to find Nick Foley’s phone and that when he took my mother’s phone the memory had already been wiped clean.

My mother maintained that Nick had planned to leave his wife for her, but Sean White insisted that all evidence pointed to the fact that the opposite was true, that my mother had been stalking Nick even though he had rejected her.

There were people who said that they heard what they now think might have been a gunshot long before my mother arrived at Nick Foley’s home, but Sean White “proved” that those witnesses weren’t credible. But he was able to find two witnesses who were, two witnesses who swore to hearing a gunshot just minutes before my mother called the police.

There were rumors that Nick Foley had had a recent falling-out with the CEO of HGVB, Edmund Gable, but Sean White was able to squash those rumors well before the case came to trial. He said that a thorough investigation proved that Nick Foley was actually incredibly fond of Edmund. He admired him! In fact, Nick loved the whole Gable family! Both Lander and his brother made statements supporting this.

In the end, my mom was sent to prison while I spent the rest of my childhood in a series of foster homes.

Three months after that, Sean White resigned from the force and accepted Edmund Gable’s offer to head security for the New York offices and branches of HGVB Bank.

But that detail didn’t make the papers.

Sometimes, when I sleep, I can still hear my mom screaming. It sounds like the screams of a dying woman. In the end, that’s exactly what they were. The death of her lover, the charges, the trial, the conviction, losing her daughter . . . All these things led to her suicide. It never occurred to me that she would do something like that, but it should have. I failed her in so many ways.

My grip on Lander’s phone is now so tight that the tips of my fingers are white. I can literally feel my rage sharpening, stabbing at my heart.

That’s good.

That’s inspiring.

With a deep breath I bring myself back to the present and scrutinize the texts. There’s nothing incriminating here, not really. But there are a few cryptic messages from Mr. White. A text that reads, I made the problem go away. And another farther down that reads, Made the switch.

What makes these interesting is that there is no preceding text conversation that explains them. They come out of nowhere, as if Mr. White wants to send a signal, letting Lander know what’s going on without creating a record that could come back to haunt him.