At the kitchen counter, the lights dimmed and shades drawn, he clicked the mouse again and opened the banking site to the savings account. Less than two thousand dollars. The checking was no better. And the mortgage was due in a week. He’d managed to conceal his deception—the tens of thousands he’d spent on lawyers and investigators for Danny. But the reckoning was coming. He imagined Liv seeing the statement for the first time. Evan telling her he’d been fired, that he’d been pretending to go to work.

He imagined his wife’s face. The anguish, which would turn to fury when she would inevitably insist on examining the rest of their accounts. She’d find Maggie’s college fund down to $12,332, not enough to cover even the cost of the dorm room at MIT.

He closed the site and set up an automatic email timed to send to Liv tomorrow morning. It told her to call the police and make sure Maggie stayed at Harper’s until they removed his body. It told her where to find the files on his computer with notes to each of the kids. And it told her where to find the information on his life insurance, which he’d confirmed would pay out even after a suicide. A cool ten million.

He thought of Dr. Silverstein’s warning. The meds can trick a patient into thinking there’s only one solution.

But he wasn’t being tricked. It had started as a whisper in his ear. The voice of reason, snaking into his subconscious, confirming his every last fear: “They’ll be better off without you.” He was doing this for them. To spare them financial ruin. To spare them living with someone who was broken. That’s what the voice kept saying. But deep down he knew it wasn’t for them at all.

It was for him.

To turn off the faucet of despair.

He slammed the fistful of pills into his mouth, then chased them with the Scotch. They went down hard, and he had to suppress the gag reflex. He poured another glass and downed it quickly as he waited for the pills to take effect.

Evan wasn’t a religious man. But he liked the idea of organized religion, with an emphasis on the organized part. As an accountant, he found virtue in organization and order. And something about the rituals and traditions of religions—rules largely aimed at making you a better person—was appealing. Back in Nebraska, Liv had insisted that they attend church every Sunday. Faith had helped her through her mother’s death when she was ten. After Danny was convicted and they moved to Naperville, Illinois, Evan had no patience for it all. Still, while he was waiting for the pills to do their thing, he said the words nonetheless: “God, please forgive me. And take care of them.”