But nothing lasts forever. Leah was bored with hearing me talk about Megan’s mounting paranoia and, like a cat wanting to play with a defenseless mouse, wanted to see for herself. “Why should you get to have all the fun?” she’d asked, pushing out her bottom lip like a petulant teenager. So Leah had helped me plan for Megan to find the photo on my phone. Had giggled as I ordered a load of things that matched the bright blue of the underwear to dot around the house. When I’d described the sheer panic in Megan’s pretty, dumb eyes as she knelt by her own underwear drawer, searching for the set she was terrified she had forgotten buying, Leah had practically clapped with joy.

We knew Megan would follow Leah to the cabin to find answers. Leah couldn’t have advertised her whereabouts any more clearly; she wanted to rub it in her sister’s face that she had won. That she had the money, and the fame, and had even managed to snare Megan’s husband. I thought there would be a showdown, something I could use to form the basis of a new plan to get my hands on her fortune; I was excited to watch what would happen. I didn’t expect to arrive just in time to watch my wife drag her sister’s prone body across the deck and try to lift her into the chest freezer to cuddle up with bags of bait ready for the next fisherman to visit. At that moment, I’d been intrigued to see what she’d do next. I have to give her some credit; if I’d just been some chump of a husband without the sense to keep proper tabs on my wife, I might even have believed the lies she told. As Megan. And as Leah. Some seriously messed-up shit I married into.

Running a long con, one that may span years, takes a fair amount of effort. It’s too easy to get bored, get complacent. And so I made sure I had a side project in the form of the great Patterson curse. There is no actual curse. No genetic link to the “problems” her mum faces. I’ve checked with a few professionals, played the concerned husband card, and found that people are surprisingly verbose and loose lipped. I must admit, though, that when you look at the shit-show of her life, the mum’s that is, you can understand why someone might seek refuge behind a veneer of mental illness, to give their stupidity and complete lack of self-awareness, their gullibility, some kind of reason beyond their control. The dad was a con man, a complete bastard who should never have had one family, let alone two. But you still have to admire him a bit; to have one woman worship you is a compliment, to have two—and the mum was a stunner back in the day—is downright intoxicating.

Perhaps when I get my hands on all that cash, I’ll set myself up with a couple of pieces. Nice, young, pliable things. The idea of sailing the world with a harem of beautiful girls in bikinis certainly has a nice appeal to it.