Their call was a sting operation. She had called Detective Broadus to report I was her biological daughter and told him I’d been having sex with Jessie. Then they put their heads together and came up with the idea of trying to get me to come forth with evidence that David had performed his autoerotic activities previously. This, because Broadus was still convinced I had seduced David and blackmailed him into sending me the money. The plan was for Alison to call me on the phone even while the police were ready to surprise me with a search warrant. No doubt Alison was hoping to get two things from the phone call: a confession about being with Jessie, and evidence of David’s sexual activity that I could only provide if I had, in fact, been sleeping with him. Alison hoped I’d be put in prison, and she’d be able to keep Jessie from my clutches and the family could move on with their lives.

But I managed to stay several steps ahead of them. The very day Alison and I had our talk in her hotel room I set her up by claiming I kept the $1.2 million for myself. I knew if she planned to shaft me, she’d use that to get Detective Broadus’s attention. And I also knew it would hurt her credibility once I proved I never kept the money.

Why didn’t I keep it?

Too risky. It might have been construed as blackmail. Before David killed himself my plan was to live with Michael and never tell him about the $1.2 million, much less the other $800,000 David still owed me. I was going to withdraw the gains on that mutual fund over time, along with some of the principal. With any luck, Michael would live his entire life without knowing about the money, because I controlled it. After all, I had the password and account number, not him.

But when David died, all my plans went up in smoke. And when Jessie revealed her intentions I discovered I really cared for her. And by the way, she stands to inherit a fortune of her own, so that opens the door to lots of possibilities.

As for Alison’s sting, and the police raid, I saw it coming a mile away. I’ve never trusted the police. Not only that, but Jess told me her mom confronted her about us. So we devised this plan: Jess told her if I really did say those things I must have been fantasizing it. She then offered to prove she was still a virgin. Alison said, “I’m happy to hear that. But it doesn’t prove you weren’t molested.” To hedge her bet, she forbade Jessie to ever see me or speak my name again. Then last week, one of my neighbors informed me that a police detective asked him if he’d ever seen me with a man that matched David’s description, or if he’d ever seen the various rental cars David had driven to my house those weeks.

My neighbor told them nothing. He hates the cops more than I do.

So anyway, Alison tried to set me up. And you can say anything you want about me, but she’s the real villain in all of this. She’s the one who gave me up at birth. What sort of mother doesn’t want her own child? She’s also the one who treated David with indifference. After giving her the most amazing life a woman could ever hope to have, she treated him like shit and had a long-term affair with his married insurance agent. She also cussed me out in the hotel and said she’d seen enough of me for a lifetime.