He took a heavy brass hair barrette out of his coat pocket and laid it next to my purse.

“Your barrette dropped on the dressing room carpet this morning.”

I took the brass barrette from his hand and clipped it into my hair at the back of my neck, feeling its heavy metal teeth press hard against my scalp.

“Will you be home for lunch?” I asked.

“I’ve got a meeting at the commercial bank downtown at twelve,” he said, stepping out into the morning air.

By eleven the smell of roasted rosemary pine nuts filled the kitchen while two caterers in black aprons laid out tasting trays on the side counter.

Maisie sat on the tall barstool at the kitchen island, holding her soft stuffed bunny tight to her chest with her left arm.

She scribbled on a paper napkin with a red crayon, her little shoes swinging two inches off the floor.

“Daddy forgot his paper,” she said, pointing a sticky finger at the pile of household mail next to the coffee maker.

I pulled the printed statement for our joint household account out of the middle of the stack.

The third page showed an outgoing domestic wire transfer dated October 14.

Four hundred ten thousand dollars had gone out of our joint trust balance straight into an account belonging to a company called North Ridge Holdings.

Cole came back into the kitchen through the terrace door with his second cell phone pressed to his ear.

He hung up without saying goodbye and laid the phone facedown on the quartz island.