“Mrs.

Vance,” she said, and her eyes moved across the scene, the suitcases, the divorce papers in Luca’s hand, the woman in my earrings, taking all of it in and dismissing all of it in a single glance.

“We’re here to secure your property.” And I watched Luca’s face, which had been so smooth and so confident ten minutes earlier, begin, for the first time, to register that something was happening that he did not understand and could not control.

He had planned this afternoon down to the packed suitcases.