Last Box Standing

Her ex-husband vanished three weeks ago. Now she's packing up his life.

For a year Marnie Kowalczyk has emptied other people's houses. Now the job is her ex-husband's.

Greg walked out of their marriage with the house, both cars and the good knives. Then his company went bankrupt, and three weeks ago Greg disappeared. His phone is off. Nobody has seen him. His mother, Dodie, is pretending she isn't worried.

Greg's bankruptcy trustee wants the condo cleared and sold, and Clean Sweep put in the lowest bid in the county. So Marnie is boxing up the man who left her, one box at a time.

There's also a fraud file with her initials on it. Ever since a ledger turned up in a freezer last October, somebody has been moving money through a company called MK Restoration. Marnie never opened it. Greg is missing, the police want to know where he went, and Marnie is the ex-wife with both a motive and a key.

Somewhere in that condo is the box Greg didn't want anyone to open. Marnie is going to open it, with Dodie riding shotgun, Abe Lindqvist in her corner, and the Beast's horn ready to play its fanfare at the worst possible moment.

This is the fifth Clean Sweep Mystery, where the money trail that started in the freezer finally comes to an end.