For Eight Months I Thought I’d Found Love After My Divorce — Then a Woman I’d Never Met Recognized His Photo and Said “When I Knew Him, He Went by a Different Name,” and I Understood Every Breakfast Had Been Reconnaissance

Christopher had not been circling us waiting to pounce.

He had been a father, held at arm’s length by a man who needed him gone — and the reason Gregory had needed him gone was about to become horribly clear.

I understand now that the isolation was not a side effect of Gregory’s scheme.

It was the scheme, or the foundation of it, the first and most important thing he built.

Because a woman with people around her — an involved ex-husband, a sharp-eyed mother, a circle of friends who know her well — is a woman who is very difficult to rob.