At sixty-two, I spent the night with a man twenty-eight years younger than me. I did it because I was tired of being invisible—and because, for once, I wanted passion. But when I woke up alone in the hotel room the next morning, I discovered something terrifying.

Then I forced myself to read them.

Transfer twenty-five thousand dollars before noon.

If you contact the police, the photographs will be sent to your children, your neighbors, and everyone in your address book.

At the bottom was a bank account number.

My hands began to shake.

Twenty-five thousand dollars was almost everything Richard had left in my emergency savings.

For several minutes, I sat on the edge of the hotel bed, unable to move.

The room still carried the faint scent of Julian’s cologne.

Only hours earlier, that scent had made me feel safe.

Now it made me sick.

I looked at the photographs again.

There was nothing graphic in them.

But they were private.

One showed Julian leading me through the lobby with his hand resting on my lower back.

Another showed me sitting beside him on the bed, smiling at something he had said.

The final photograph showed me sleeping beneath the blanket.