My 11-year-old pulled me behind a pillar at the mall—what we saw my mother-in-law doing made us hide, and by morning, two people had gone pale

had invested $85,000 in one of Richard Cole’s real-estate ventures. The money hadn’t come from our savings. It came from Margaret. Daniel promised her he could repay it quickly because he expected to gain access to equity from our home. He had even suggested that, if necessary, he could convince me to refinance.

Then the investment collapsed.

Margaret continue reading …