If you read Part 1, you already know how my night ended: a retired nurse in a freezing house, a plastic bag heavy with pennies, and me driving off with less money than I started with—because I couldn’t unsee what I saw.
What I didn’t tell you is what happened after I turned her thermostat up to 70.
Because the truth is… doing the “right thing” doesn’t always feel like a movie ending.
Sometimes it feels like a mistake that keeps ringing in your ears.
The next morning I woke up with the smell of rotisserie chicken still on my hands.
That sounds ridiculous, but it was true.
I’d washed them twice. Scrubbed under my nails. Used dish soap that smelled like lemons. And still, when I put my palms near my face, it was there—warm salt, grocery store plastic, that greasy comfort smell that doesn’t belong in a house where the thermostat stays at fifty-eight “until December.”
My phone had died overnight.
When I plugged it in, it lit up like a slot machine.
Seven missed calls.
A dozen texts.
And one voicemail from a number I didn’t recognize.
My stomach did that slow, sinking thing.
Not because I thought I was a hero.
Because I knew exactly what I’d done—and who was about to make me pay for it.
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