A man facing a criminal case for forgery does not have the leverage to fight a divorce, and his lawyers, competent to the last, advised him to take the fast, quiet dissolution I had offered him weeks earlier — the one he’d been too arrogant to take when he still could.

Chapter 23 — The Reckoning

Desmond’s downfall was not a spectacle.

I had wanted one, in the first cold hours — I will not pretend otherwise.

But the lawful version was better, because it was permanent, and it did not require me to become anything I’d have to answer for later.

He was charged.