"He flashed a badge when I first opened the door, but I didn't pay attention. Parole officers carry badges. I thought that's who he was so I didn't bother to check his name. I mean, what's it to me? I didn't see what choice I had so I let him in. When he pulled out the envelope, I figured he had forms to fill out, like he'd be filing some report. By the time I realized what he was up to I was so damn mad I didn't care who he was."

"What are you going to do?"

"I'm sure as hell canceling my dinner date. I wouldn't sit down with Onni if I had a gun to my head."

"Don't you think Beck's the one you should be mad at? You went to jail for the guy and this is what he does in return."

"I never went to jail for him. Who told you that?"

"What difference does it make? That's the word around town."

"Well, I didn't."

"Come on, Reba. You might as well come clean. I'm the only friend you have. So you're crazy in love and took the fall for him. Wouldn't be the first time. Maybe he sweet-talked you into it."

"He didn't sweet-talk me into anything. I knew what I was doing."

"I have a hard time believing that."

"You want to argue the point? You ask me to be honest and then you sit there and make judgments? How fucked up is that?"

I raised a hand. "Right. You're right. I apologize. I didn't mean it that way."

She stared at me, assessing my sincerity. I must have looked like an honest woman because she said, "Okay."

"Anyway, whatever the motivation, you're saying you didn't embezzle any money from him?"

"Of course not. I have money of my own, or at least I had some back then."

"That being the case, how'd you end up in jail?"

"The discrepancies showed up on an audit and he had to account for the missing money somehow. He thought they'd let me off easy. Suspended sentence, probation – you know, something like that."

"That seems like a stretch. You'd been in jail once before on a bad-check charge. From the judge's point of view, this was simply more of the same."

"Well, yeah, I guess it might have looked that way. Beck did everything he could to soften the blow. He told the DA he didn't want to file charges, but I guess it's like a case of domestic violence – once the system gets hold of you, you don't have much choice. There's this big gap, three hundred and fifty thousand gone and him without an explanation."

"What happened to the money?"