I felt, strangely, almost grateful to him for it.

He had finally made the situation clear enough that even I, expert at explaining him away, could no longer pretend.

Two hundred employees were gathered under the glass chandeliers of the Halcyon Hotel for Bellweather Systems’ twentieth-anniversary party.

Conversations near us faltered and then resumed at the careful volume people use when they have just seen something ugly and are afraid of the man who did it.

I straightened.

I adjusted the strap of my dress where it had slipped.