Five minutes after the judge finalized my divorce, my father grabbed my arm on the courthouse steps and said, “Open every banking app. Right now.”
The Chicago winter was doing what Chicago winters do, pushing cold air between the buildings in long insistent gusts that found the gaps in your coat. I had been moving on automatic since the judge signed the decree, the way you move when your body understands it needs to keep going but your mind has not yet processed the destination.
Michael had already exited through the main doors. I could see him in the parking lot below, laughing at something Vanessa said, his hand at the small of her back, both of them moving toward a black SUV with the easy body language of people who have just concluded a satisfying piece of business. He glanced back once.
Found my eyes across the distance. “Don’t cry too hard, Mari,” he said. Loud enough to carry.
“Some women just don’t know how to keep a man.”
Vanessa laughed. Michael opened her door. My father’s hand tightened on my arm.
Gustavo Salazar had spent more than three decades investigating financial fraud for federal agencies. He had sat across from men who had built elaborate architectures of deception, men who had stolen from pension funds and charities and the people who trusted them, and he had learned to read the specific quality of a person’s confidence. The confidence that comes from genuine security looks different from the confidence that comes from believing you have already won.
He looked at Michael and Vanessa in the parking lot, and then he looked at me. “Open every banking app you have,” he said. “Dad.”
“Now.” His voice had the quality it used in serious moments, not raised, not theatrical, simply occupying its full weight.
“Change every PIN. Every password. Personal cards.
Business cards. Travel cards. Emergency accounts.
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