To differentiate myself from Irene, I tried to understand what Russ does for work. He is executive vice president of customer relations for Ascension, which means, essentially, that he does exactly what he’d done in college when Todd Croft was selling beer in the dorms—he lends him his trustworthy face, his cheerful good-guy demeanor, and his sterling personal reputation. Ascension invests in “high-risk, high-yield” investment opportunities for very wealthy clients, many of them foreign.

“Why won’t we have neighbors?” I asked. We were down on the private beach—I had decided to leave Maia with Huck so we could have some alone time—sitting together on one of the brand-new chaise longues that Pauline had bought. We were drinking champagne, the Krug. “Russ?”

I was leaning back against Russ, tucked between his legs, and he murmured into my hair, “We sold those lots to fictional entities. Shell companies that we set up…”

“So, wait,” I said. “Is that legal?”

“People do it all the time down here,” Russ said. “To clean money, to hide money.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

Russ squeezed me tight. “This is the Caribbean, Rosie,” he said, as if it weren’t the only home I’d ever known.

Russ is in the business of money-laundering and tax evasion. I said I didn’t believe him capable of it, and once I pried a little more, he admitted that he’d taken the position at Ascension thinking it was 100 percent aboveboard, but once he’d figured out it wasn’t (in addition to everything else it did, the company invested money for some bad people—bad both morally and politically), it was too late. He was in too deep to protest.

“Then there’s the fact that both Todd and Stephen know about you,” he said.

Without a word, I got to my feet and bent down to kiss Russ on the cheek. “Be right back,” I said. I ascended the eighty steps to the villa, got in my car, and drove home.

I hate that I now know Russ is cheating the system—and yet, what did I expect? He’s cheating on his wife. I’m an integral part of the grand deception. I’m a lie. Maia is a lie. Mama was right, so right, to tell me to stay away from him. But had I listened? No. Three days after she was gone, I was back in his bed.

It’s over, I’ve decided.

When I kissed Maia as she lay sleeping, I thought, I am going to find a man who deserves to be your father.

February 14, 2017

The money still arrives in packages, only instead of depositing it in a bank account for Maia’s college, I’ve started stacking it neatly in the bottom drawer of my dresser. If the money is illegal, someone will trace it to my bank account eventually. Cash is safer.