“No. He promised me today and tomorrow. They worked until it got dark and then left. They must have been on the road when the blackout struck.” Penny yawned. “Okay, darling. Would you like me to record the news in case Lorraine comes on again?”

“That won’t be necessary. Good night, Penny.” Conrad hung up the phone. He was tempted to pour himself another drink but decided against it. His reflection in the mirror behind the bar was of an attractive, graying man who was in reasonably good shape but whose face showed serious signs of stress. He needed to focus and get to work. With fire in his belly, he sat down at his antique desk. The sight of the red leather desktop, delicate china lamp, and engraved Mont Blanc pen set soothed him. He was ready to tackle what needed to be tackled. As Grandpa Spreckles used to say, “Whenever the world was getting me down, I headed into the kitchen and got to work on a new batch of chocolates. That was when I invented some of our finest recipes.”

Conrad looked up at the portrait of Grandma and Grandpa Spreckles that had been painted in honor of their fiftieth wedding anniversary. They’d be mortified to know how much money generated from the sale of Spreckles chocolates had been paid out to Conrad and his brother, Winston’s, ex-wives. At least Winston now seemed happy with wife number two.

“I’m not going to let Lorraine take me to the cleaners!” Conrad promised his grandparents. He quickly unlocked the file drawer where he kept his financial statements from the last few years. He knew he didn’t pay enough attention to personal money matters. He left it to his accountant, whom he trusted completely. After all, it was the accountant who had urged him to have a prenuptial agreement. Thank God I made her sign it, he thought. Of course she hadn’t been too happy about it. She almost talked him out of it. At least I’d kept my wits about me in that situation. She’ll only get five million dollars.

It only took a few moments of perusing the statements for Conrad’s face to turn beet red. He knew that Lorraine charged every purchase she possibly could. She’d charge a stick of gum if it were allowed. She claimed that it built up their mileage on the airlines. Mileage they were never able to use when they traveled. Their trips always seemed to take place either during the airlines’ blackout dates or when first-class award seats were already long gone.

The credit card bills were approved by Conrad and then sent off to the accountant who paid them. Conrad had also given Lorraine plenty of cash for walking-around money. God knows what she needed it for since everything she bought went on the charge card. But now as he looked through his records he realized that in the past two years she’d withdrawn thousands and thousands of dollars in cash from the three checking accounts. Five hundred here from an ATM machine in New York City. Six hundred there from an ATM machine in Greenwich. Why hadn’t the accountant pointed it out to him? Conrad opened his drawer and pulled out his calculator. He furiously began tapping away at the keys. It totalled nearly seventy thousand dollars!