That night, I made a fake profile. I used a picture of a sweet-looking blonde woman from a stock photo site. I called myself Clara. I said I was a thirty-four-year-old pediatric nurse who had just moved to our area and didn’t know many people.

Within two hours of me creating the account, Greg messaged me.

“Hey there, Clara. You have a beautiful smile. It’s tough being new in town. I’d love to show you around sometime. It’s been hard for me since I lost my wife, but talking to someone as lovely as you makes the days a bit brighter.”

I sat on the sofa downstairs while he was upstairs watching a football game. I could hear the muffled sound of the crowd cheering through the ceiling.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” I typed back. “It must be so quiet in your house.”

“It is,” he replied instantly. “She was a good woman, but her illness took a lot out of us. I’ve spent the last two years just trying to breathe again. I think I’m ready to move on. Maybe even move down south. Florida sounds nice this time of year.”

We had never discussed Florida. We had spent our entire lives in Michigan. My father built our house with his own hands. When my parents died, they left the property to me in a private family trust. It was the only real security I had, and Greg knew that. Or, he thought he knew how to get around it.

For three days, I played the part of Clara. I asked him about his life. He told me he was planning to sell his properties and wrap up his business here within the month. He told me he had a substantial amount of equity tied up in his home that he was cashing out.

All the while, he was sitting across from me at the dinner table, eating my beef stew. He would look at me and sigh.

“You look tired, Diane,” he’d say, his voice dripping with this fake, heavy pity. “You really need to take care of yourself. You’ve got that gray look your sister had before she got sick.”

He was gaslighting me. He was trying to make me feel weak, trying to set a narrative. I realized then that he wasn’t just looking for an affair. He was planning an entire exit, and he wanted my father’s house to fund it.